Carles Puigdemont’s political epiphany came in 1979, when he joined thousands of fellow Catalan fans who traveled by bus to Basel, Switzerland, for the final of a European soccer championship.
Barcelona beat Fortuna Dusseldorf, and the experience made Puigdemont decide that his future lay with his region. Today, he’s Catalonia’s president, and he’s wrestling with a national constitutional and economic crisis spawned by his decision to push for secession from Spain.
His commitment will be tested this week as the independence push enters a crucial phase. He’s got an army of fellow travelers behind him clamoring for him to declare independence, and the Spanish police at his door threatening to throw in him jail if he does. The sedition charges floated for some of his allies carry prison terms of up to 15 years.
Puigdemont, a 54-year-old father of two, says he’s willing to pay that price.
“I’m not dealing with my own private wishes,” he said in a July interview. “I’m dealing with the desires of a very significant part of Catalan society and I need to take responsibility for that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken on the job.”
The regional assembly is set to meet—defying a national court ruling—to consider an independence declaration as early as Tuesday. That’s after an illegal referendum on Oct. 1 that Puigdemont and his government say produced an overwhelming majority for secession. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vows that “national unity will be maintained” by using all instruments available, including suspending the regional government.
Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria made it personal Monday, saying of Puigdemont that, “If this man unilaterally declares independence, measures will have to be taken.”
Meanwhile, banks and businesses are fleeing Catalonia. CaixaBank SA, the region’s biggest bank, said Friday it will relocate its legal base to Valencia, and Banco Sabadell plans to move to Alicante. Gas Natural SDG said it would transfer its registered office to Madrid from Barcelona.
It’s a huge controversy for someone who only two years ago was the little-known mayor of Girona, with a population of less than 100,000. Puigdemont was handpicked to lead the regional government by his predecessor, Artur Mas, in part because of his separatist credentials.
Seeing Barcelona win the 1979 European soccer title was, for Puigdemont, a Catalan history-making moment. On the trip, he also met a wide variety of Catalans from other parts of the region. That persuaded him that he wanted to serve his homeland, according to a biography by Jordi Grau Ramip and Andreu Mas.
By then Puigdemont already had an interest in politics—he still owns a collection of posters from all the political rallies he attended as a 14-year-old in 1977, at the start of Spanish democracy. He played bass for a short-lived Catalan rock band formed around 1980 and still owns, and sometimes plays, an electric guitar and an electric piano. One of his favorite songs is Guns n’ Roses’s version of the Bob Dylan classic “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” according to the biography.
While in university in Girona, where he studied languages before dropping out, he worked in communications, first as a journalist for different Catalan media groups and then as a communications and culture adviser for local and regional governments. In 2006 he ran for office for the first time and was elected to the Catalan parliament. Ten years later, after Mas’ endorsement, he became president of the region, governing via a wide coalition of political parties.
Even before taking the top office, Puigdemont, the second of eight children in a family of bakers, had to rely heavily on partnerships, both with political parties and with other organizations. It was talent he honed during his time as Girona’s mayor between 2011 and 2016, where he initially led a minority government.
To form the Catalan coalition he struck alliances with two other parties that share his common goal of independence: the left-leaning ERC and the CUP, a grass-roots group with strong anarchist and anti-capitalist roots. Just as important, though, are the partnerships he developed with the leaders of two independence campaign groups, the ANC and Omnium, that have led most of the on-the-street pro-secessionist activism in recent years. And he has to balance his own party, the traditionally business-friendly Catalan European Democratic Party, and its four main partners.
Not to mention the thousands of Spanish police housed in two cruise ships in the Port of Barcelona, ready to shut down the rebel administration if Puigdemont follows through with his pledge.
He says he has a mandate.
“When you analyze the story of Catalonia, those of us who’ve lived it from the start, you don’t have the right to take a step backward if you’ve agreed to be president,” he said in the interview.
—With assistance from Angeline Benoit.
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