Puigdemont says his party, key to Spain's political future, will not fall for 'blackmail'

If pro-independence Junts was already central to Spain's political future right after the July 23 general election, now, almost a week later, it is clear that it will play an even more crucial role.

The count of ballots from Spaniards living abroad, which was finalized late Friday evening, saw the Socialists lose a seat to the conservative People's Party, meaning that a Junts abstention will no longer be enough for a Pedro Sánchez prime ministerial bid: the pro-independence party will now have to vote in favor of it for it to be successful.

Junts' Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president at the time of the 2017 independence referendum deemed illegal by Spain who has lived in Belgium for the past 5 and a half years to evade prosecution, took to Twitter on Saturday to address this situation.

"Whoever believes that they can obtain some tactical benefit by exerting pressure or by practicing political blackmail shouldn't bother trying," he wrote in an 827-word tweet.

The politician, currently an MEP, called for "caution" as, according to him, "not enough time has passed to know what the two big Spanish parties will end up doing."

Describing the People's Party as "the one that has lost by winning" - the conservatives were the most-voted party but fell short of an absolute majority, even with the backing of the far-right - and the Socialists as "the one that has won by losing" as Sánchez's party seems to have a greater chance at forging a larger alliance, Puigdemont said he saw three possible future scenarios. 

Either Junts negotiates with the Socialists and backs a Sánchez prime ministerial bid, the Socialists abstain and allow for a People's Party bid to move forward, or there is another general election down the line. 

"In similar circumstances, they preferred to repeat the elections," he wrote, referring to 2019's two general elections. 

In the meantime, other parties have continued to cozy up to Junts, with the conservatives stating on Saturday that they were open to negotiating with them "within the constitutional framework" - the Socialists said the same thing only a few days ago - and Esquerra, Catalonia's ruling party, now says it has not ruled out welcoming its former junior coalition partner back into office in exchange for support for Sánchez.