ORIOL JUNQUERAS
Unlike Puigdemont, his former No. 2 is already behind bars.
Junqueras heeded a Spanish summons and was jailed pending the conclusion of an investigation into the Oct. 27 declaration of independence.
A charismatic true believer in the secession cause, the Catalan ex-vice president is trying to lead his pro-secession Republican Left party from a prison outside Madrid.
Polls consistently show that Republican Left has the best chance of being the party that wins the most votes, although it would be nowhere near an outright majority.
But with Junqueras' legal future looking as bleak as Puigdemont's, the No. 2 on the Republican Left's list, Marta Rovira, is in the best position of all the separatists to become head of a ruling coalition.
INES ARRIMADAS
Originally from southern Spain but fluent in Catalan, the 34-year-old Ines Arrimadas personifies the counter-narrative to Catalan separatism.
Arrimadas has had a spectacular rise since her start in politics in 2012 with the pro-business Citizens party, which struck a nerve with Catalans who also feel Spanish after it was founded in Barcelona 11 years ago as a homegrown response to the secession movement.
Despite her lack of experience, she proved to be a strong leader of the opposition in the last legislature of the Catalan parliament and has successfully taken up the banner of the anti-secessionist cause. Sky more