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Puigdemont, who fled Spain after leading Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid, resumed his place at the helm of the Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) after winning more than 90 percent of the ballots cast by party activists.
Addressing a party congress in Calella near Barcelona via videolink, Puigdemont told his supporters that it was “now time to go out and play a new game”.
“Let’s stop resisting and go on the offensive… Long live a free Catalonia,” the 61-year-old concluded to applause.
Puigdemont led the regional government in 2017 when it carried out an independence referendum, in spite of a court ban.
A short-lived declaration of independence followed, sparking Spain’s worst political crisis since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
He fled shortly after to avoid prosecution, living in Belgium and more recently France.
But on August 8 he defied an arrest warrant to return to Spain, delivering a speech to thousands gathered outside the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona before slipping away.
While Spain’s parliament passed an amnesty law in May for those involved in the secession bid, the supreme court ruled on July 1 that the measure would not fully apply to Puigdemont.