After a considerable number of headaches and more than one intense disagreement between the leaders of the inner circle of power of exiled Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, the sudoku of Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), now being transformed into a fully-fledged party, has been solved in a candidacy without major surprises in the key positions - that is, the presidency, vice-presidencies (four) and general secretary; and one moderate surprise as to the secretary of organization and secretary for finance. The same goes for the 18 figures that are part of a second list completing the executive, where many of the prominent names in the party can be seen, such as Batet, Borràs, Calvet, Madrenas, Morral and Míriam Nogueras. A second list with three names for secretary general, and secretaries for organization and finance will incorporate, perhaps, a touch of uncertainty in the voting, which will take place by internet next weekend.
At the core of what Puigdemont intends to be the first executive of the party, he has placed seven people on whom the weight of the organization's operation will fall: the four vice-presidents, Jordi Turull, Elsa Artadi, Anna Erra and Josep Rius; the general secretary, Jordi Sànchez; the organizational head, David Saldoni; and the finance secretary, Teresa Pallarès. Thus, one can see the strong weighting given to those who were active in the old centre-right party Convergència - five of them - and who have played a role in the evolution of this formation towards a pro-independence line. From the left, on the other hand, come Sànchez and Pallarès.
The fact that important positions in the party management are held by two political prisoners, Sànchez and Turull - whose open prison regimes and work leave permissions have been annulled, returning them to the stricter situation which they had previously at Lledoners prison - leaves hanging more than one question about the day-to-day running of Junts. In any case, it seems that the pending issue of providing support to the independence movement and the list of public and government officials has been resolved via a more traditional party structure to stand up to the strong organization of its main rival in the pro-independence space, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC).
The PDeCAT (Catalan European Democratic Party) in the end remains afloat as an organization, having lost many of its members and leaders. It remains unknown what the party's main figures of reference will end up doing - these being, for now, David Bonvehí, Marc Castells, Ferran Bel and Marc Solsona. Puigdemont is trying to absorb this entity which bear the bruises of the struggle, but still resists.
Finally, it should be noted that the composition of the leadership of Junts positions the party more in the centre left than the centre right. The latter is the ideological space that Artur Mas would have contributed, but he maintains a public silence that can no longer be interpreted as a sign of complicity.