No guarantees, no elections

There will be no elections. Or at least yesterday the President did not call elections even though it was taken for granted that he would for a large part of the day, to the point where some PDeCAT MPs announced on Twitter their intention of leaving the party and renouncing their seat in Parliament. With meetings at all levels and in midst of all manner of speculation, Carles Puigdemont appeared at 5pm in the Palau de la Generalitat, where he had previously deferred giving statements twice to finally announce that it was not to summon elections, and that after seriously considerations, he would leave the next move in the hands of the parliament.

Puigdemont admitted that to avoid the drastic measures presented by the Spanish government, and as a result of the appeals he had received in recent days, he had considered calling elections out of “duty and responsibility” to exhaust all possibilities of dialogue, agreeing to the mediation of the Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu, and in the morning seemed to have reached an agreement with Madrid to hold elections in exchange for the Senate calling off Article 155. Puigdemont had gone as far as to inform JxSí MPS of the decision which soon became public, causing consternation for some and relief for others inside and outside government dependencies. A delay eventuated when the President could not elicit guarantees from Madrid that by his calling elections, the Senate would not vote and that the elections would be held within “normal circumstances”. Finally, the President made his statement to the press at 5pm, handing the matter then over to the parliament for debate.