"Catalonia needs leadership" will be the central message with which the Junts' candidacy, Puigdemont for Catalonia, will compete in the May 12th election race. It is a "multi-message" campaign, according to the campaign managers, which will be complemented with other messages, always headed by the motto "Catalonia needs...", and followed by other key phrases: ...good government; to be respected; to live in Catalan; independence, among others. The campaign colour is blue, to show that the candidacy wants to go beyond the Junts party - which has a teal colour as its usual shade - and Carles Puigdemont does not appear with a conventional campaign portrait, but with a photograph inside a car, intended to evoke the image of the return from exile.
"The 12th May election has enormous significance. We have the future of the country at stake, the future of the nation. This situation is due to a weak government, with no direction, which has generated a state of distrust and disillusionment, but also of a government that has not been respected by the [Spanish] state", asserted the campaign head, Albert Batet, at the presentation of the slogan.
The Junts campaign, which will focus on the events that Puigdemont will lead in Northern Catalonia, and to which members of the public will travel by coach from different parts of Catalonia, will be funded with public subsidies and, as in previous elections, also through the donations and contributions of members. However, Junts has not released its estimated figure for this campaign, arguing that the budget will not be passed by the party's national council until Monday.
According to Batet, Junts has proposed a "campaign focused on the needs of the country" and in what he describes as a "refoundational spirit to lift up Catalonia", with a government that is respected by the Spanish state. "And the first need of the country is leadership", he affirmed, although he insisted that Junts will emphasize specific issues such as the language, the education system, the excess of bureaucracy, the drought, the situation of farmers, etc.
Puigdemont or Illa
Junts considers that in the electoral race the only candidates with options are Puigdemont and the Catalan Socialist (PSC) candidate Salvador Illa and this will dictate how their message responds to the rivals. "Catalans will have to choose between leadership or following, self-respect or resignation, being a nation or a branch office," argued the campaign leader.
In relation to the appeal lodged this Monday by the Ciudadanos party against Puigdemont's candidacy - accusing the exiled president of giving an "unreal" address, since he has not lived in Catalonia during his years of exile - Batet limited himself to ensuring that "If Junts has learned anything from these six and a half years of exile, it is to persist". He recalled that the will to prevent Puigdemont from being a candidate has been seen in different elections, for example, the last European elections in 2019, in which the candidacies of Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí were also contested because they were in exile, but they were finally able to participate. "We don't know the decisions that the electoral commission will take, but we know how to fight them and how to make ourselves respected," replied Batet.