Jordi Pujol i Soley
Jordi Pujol i Soley [ ʒɔɾði puʒɔl ] ( born June 9, 1930 in Barcelona) is a Catalan politician and served from 1980 to 2003 head of government of Catalonia (President of the Generalitat de Catalunya ) and to 2003 chairman of the party Convergència i Unio.
Political life
The trained physicians Jordi Pujol already worked under the Franco regime in the Catalan opposition and was sentenced in 1960 to seven years imprisonment, but released after two and a half years. In 1974 he founded the Catalan national party Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, which together with the Unio Democrática de Catalunya Convergència i Unio since 1979. He was elected in 1980 as head of government of Catalonia and in 1984, 1988, 1992, 1995 and 1999, confirmed in this office. At the 2003 election he resigned his political office and handed over the party chairmanship to Artur Mas, which could, however, achieve top candidate in the general election a majority. Pujols successor in office of the Catalan government was the socialist Pasqual Maragall, the leaning to November 2006 on a three-party coalition.