When bipartisanship prevails, the polarization of the electoral campaign is a guarantee of success, but in Catalonia a triangular game is played out in which the unknown exit, according to the polls, is who wins among pro-independence parties and how a government majority is forged. The hand-to-hand combat prevails in the prolegomena of the 12-M campaign, although not necessarily among the candidates who aspire to victory.
Together they cling to the hit “O Puigdemont o Sánchez”. It is a struggle for elevation and the distance that overlooks Salvador Illa. Pedro Sánchez confirmed in December that he would meet with Puigdemont once the Amnesty law was implemented. He claimed that it was a consistent step to normalize the relationship with his investiture partners. The Catalan elections were not on the calendar. Now, the resulting arithmetical combination will complicate the legislature if Junts or ERC are left out of the game in Catalonia.
Without regard to the stability of the Spanish Government, Junts’ first objective is to relegate ERC by appealing to the pro-independence vote. The story of Puigdemont’s restitution is fueled by concepts such as “hope” and “determination” in the face of Pere Aragonès’ pragmatic and management approach. Once he assumed the negotiation stage, Junts boasted to ERC that he had achieved in eight months “more than others in five years”.
It took ERC two years to claim the pardons and Junts has snatched away the amnesty story, so Aragonès is now focusing on exploiting the absences and dependencies of his opponents. Pending the scope of the “Puigdemont effect” in the polls, Aragonès will not challenge the former president, although he will amend his script. He emphasizes that the “restitution” of the leader of Junts is “personal”, “not institutional”, and recalls the legitimacy of his presidency and that of Quim Torra. Yes, Junts will be criticized for being “disloyal” for leaving the Government, even though the Republicans remember that the Government’s grade went up when the “noise” generated by cohabitation in the Generalitat ended.
Management does not win elections, but in ERC they are convinced that the comeback mantra will not make Puigdemont a winner, no matter how much he moves his headquarters from Waterloo to Vallespir. The fact that the former president has opted for number two on the sectoral profile list and delegated the debates to the third, Josep Rull, on management goes deep into the republican diagnosis. “Return to do what?”, they insist.
In its own way, the bicephaly in ERC places Oriol Junqueras in a campaign of proximity while Aragonès seeks relevance by feeding hand-to-hand with the PSC and even with Isabel Díaz Ayuso. This strategy is part of the participation on Monday in the general commission of the Autonomous Communities of the Senate, which the PP intended to turn into the umpteenth act of opposition to the amnesty. Without the plenum of PP barons, the Aragonès-Ayuso duel is the only incentive. The president is happy to “troll” the PP and, this time, yes, he will stay to listen to Ayuso.
Illa wants to be away from the noise, despite the interpellations of Aragonès. Puigdemont’s candidacy also remains relevant: he does not avoid dialogue with Junts, but shows contempt for “messianic leaders”. Illa has spent two years brandishing the speech with an outstretched hand to the Government for budgets or to address the drought and now Aragonès calls him the “no” candidate for his opposition to unique funding for Catalonia and a referendum. In the PSC they flee from the epic: “with drought, important energy and the last in education. We already know what the epic is for.” Illa will not move from “turning the page” to a “lost decade” that he attributes to both ERC and Junts and takes it for granted that the amnesty’s impact on his electorate has already diminished.
With the polls in hand and the starting point of the campaign, the risk of so much hand-to-hand is to be a slave to inflammatory speeches. The pro-independence majority is in danger, the PSC is open to agreeing with Junts and ERC, Junts refuses to make Illa president, and ERC tries to escape the bipartisan trap. The key… who comes second.
