Puigdemont decided to return on the day the Catalan parliament voted on socialist Salvador Illa as the region’s new president.
“I wanted to be present during the inauguration session and be able to exercise my right to speak and vote,” Puigdemont said in a video shared on X on Saturday. The former regional leader said it was “clear from the start that the Interior Ministry had launched a police operation” to prevent him from entering the Catalan parliament.
“Trying to gain access to parliament would have been tantamount to voluntary surrender and it was never my intention to surrender,” Puigdemont said, accusing the judicial authorities of “playing politics.”
On Saturday, the Catalan government pushed ahead with procedures to form a new government as newly elected President Illa officially took office in a ceremony. In the ceremony, he promised to “govern for all,” respect the “diversity and plurality of the Catalan people” and avoid “divisive, demagogic and populist” approaches, national media reported.
The members of the new government will be announced next week. The new president had already announced during the election campaign that the socialist mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Núria Parlon, would become Minister of the Interior; the former Director General of the Catalan Police, who was removed from office in 2017, Josep Lluís Trapero, would be reinstated in his post.
