Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida
(Alcampell, Huesca, 1952) Catalan politician.Graduated in law from the University of Lleida (1974), he was a professor of civil law at this same institution and practiced as a labor lawyer.The same year in which he finished his studies, he joined the Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC), a formation in which he presided over the Youth of Unió (1977) and soon reached positions of responsibility, becoming part first of the National Council and then of the Council.Government of the party.
Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida
In 1978 UDC joined Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) to form the Convergència coalition i Unió (CiU).The victory of this coalition in successive regional elections gave its leader, Jordi Pujol, the presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1980 to 2003.In March 2001, the CDC and the UDC signed a protocol to formally become a federation of parties.Pursuant to this agreement, Duran i Lleida became the secretary general and "number two" of the new federation.
Before and after this agreement, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida always maintained his leadership at the head of UDC and held various public positions.Elected in 1979 councilor of the Lleida City Council, he was deputy mayor until the end of 1980.That year he was appointed Secretary for Interdepartmental Affairs of the Presidency of the Generalitat, a position he held until 1982.Later he was delegate of the Generalitat in Lleida.
In the general elections of October 1982 he was elected CiU deputy for the Lleida district in the Congress of Deputies.He was again elected deputy in the third (1986-1989) and in the fourth legislatures (1989-1993).In June 1996 he was appointed president of the Catalan part of the Mixed Commission for State-Generalitat Transfers, a position he held until February 2001.
At the Generalitat de Catalunya he was Minister of the Interior and Institutional Relations between 1999 and 2001.At the beginning of 2001, Jordi Pujol appointed Artur Mas, a prominent figure from the CDC, as Conseller in Cap; the appointment evidenced that Artur Mas would be Pujol's successor.Nineteen days later, Duran i Lleida resigned, claiming that this appointment broke the balance of forces between CDC and UDC within the CiU and that his wish was to avoid friction within the Catalan government.
Re-elected deputy In the general elections of March 2004, throughout that legislature he was the parliamentary spokesman for the nationalist formation and president of the foreign legislative commission of the Congress of Deputies.For the 2008 general elections, he was again a CiU candidate, not without some controversy, since Duran himself delayed his decision pending the federation to adopt a common position regarding possible post-election agreements.Duran, who in some statements did not rule out the possibility of being a minister of Spain, was in favor of post-electoral pacts that would allow the CiU to be directly involved in the Spanish government.Once again elected deputy in 2008 and also in the general elections of 2011, in which the nationalist federation for the first time surpassed the socialists, he continued to act as CiU's parliamentary spokesman.
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