Catalan Separatists Seek to Re-elect Puigdemont<br />10, 2018<br />The main separatist parties of Catalonia have reached a preliminary agreement to re-elect Carles Puigdemont as leader of the<br />restive Spanish region, even as he remains in self-imposed exile in Belgium, the Catalan news media reported on Wednesday.<br />The deal — reached over dinner in Brussels on Tuesday — would allow Mr. Puigdemont to deliver his acceptance speech this month either by videoconference from<br />Belgium or by having another lawmaker read it in the Catalan Parliament on his behalf, according to the Catalan radio station Rac1 and other outlets.<br />Mr. Puigdemont’s party unexpectedly won the most seats among the main separatist parties in December,<br />even though Mr. Puigdemont has not made clear whether he plans to return from Belgium.<br />In a Catalan election on Dec. 21, the three main separatist parties won 70 of the 135 seats in the<br />regional Parliament, with 47.5 percent of the vote — almost identical to the result in 2015.<br />But the separatists will still struggle to form a coalition government, in large part<br />because eight of their 70 elected lawmakers are either in jail in Madrid or with Mr. Puigdemont in Belgium to avoid prosecution in Spain.<br />Marta Rovira, a deputy leader of the separatist party Esquerra Republicana, met with Mr. Puigdemont on Tuesday evening.
