BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s fugitive former leader, stares confidently out the backseat window of a car, the sun illuminating his gaze in a campaign poster for Sunday’s critical elections in the northeastern Spanish region.
The image plays on another one imagined from six years prior when Puigdemont hid in the trunk of a car as he was snuck across the French border, fleeing Spain’s crackdown on a failed illegal 2017 secession attempt that he had led as Catalan regional president.