The process towards the definitive investiture of a new Catalan president is underway. The Parliament's speaker, Roger Torrent, will start a new round of talks with the different parliamentary groups after president Carles Puigdemont today designated Quim Torra as the new candidate to succeed him. Torrent, who had already been informed of the decision by JxCat's leader, will carry out the talks by telephone, with the aim of being able to officially announce the new candidacy this Friday and hold the investiture debate and vote in the coming days.
So far, Torrent has held four rounds of talks, during which three candidates have been proposed: Carles Puigdemont himself, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Turull. The talks are held so that parties can nominate candidates, and the speaker can confirm whether any of the nominations have a chance of getting the required number of votes to be successful. After the Constitutional Court suspended the reform to Catalan presidential law, and with less than a fortnight before the 22nd May deadline, Torra will now be the definitive candidate for investiture. It is expected it will take two rounds of voting given CUP's announced abstention on any candidate other than Puigdemont, as the first round requires an absolute majority, the second only a simple majority.
The decision over the fourth candidate, the so-called plan D, which has provoked intense speculation in recent weeks, was started by a meeting of JxCat's deputies last Saturday in Berlin. The proposal was finalised early this week in discussions between Carles Puigdemont and a small core of JxCat members, including Elsa Artadi, Albert Batet, the mayor of Girona, Marta Madrenas, and the Parliament's deputy speaker, Josep Costa.