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Artur Mas has been preparing his return to the front line of Catalan politics for a few months in order to start as soon as his disqualification (due to the illegal 9-N consultation) expires. However, it's possible that his aspirations have to face greater setbacks than he expected.
Because the investigations of the corruption plots of Convergéncia (the current PDECAT) have brought to light a sub-frame of illegal financing of the campaign that led Artur Mas to the presidency of the Generalitat. According to the information made public by El Periódico, that campaign was financed with public money, and to launder the illegal financing, TV3, the Catalan public television, was used to draw up contracts that invoiced work never done, to through which the debts of Artur Mas's party were allegedly paid with the organizers of his campaign.
In the course of the investigation the former manager of TV3, Oriol Carbó, has been charged for the payment of € 750,000 for the acts of the Mas campaign. According to Judge José de La Mata's files (within the macrocause of the 3% case) the payments would have been made through the production company Triacom, belonging to Carbó, and following "Germà Gordó's specific instructions" to mask payments as jobs made for the CCMA (Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals).
Although there are several cases of corruption that dot the trajectory of Convergence (and some cases that already affect its new brand, PDECAT), this latter information directly affects the political legitimacy of Artur Mas, who intends to lead again his party to become the savior of the same Catalan right-center-wing that he managed to dismantle.
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