In the short pre-campaign of the general elections and during the course of the campaign, the appeals to deactivate the abstention promoted by certain sectors of the independence movement have been constant in the acts of Junts, in various forms and with different voices, including that of former presidents Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas and that of Xavier Trias.
The formation of Jordi Turull and Laura Borràs, with Míriam Nogueras as a candidate and a clearly pro-independence discourse, set itself the objective for July 23 to recover the first position in the sovereignist spectrum and surpass Esquerra, as they already did in the May municipal elections; but they fear that the abstentionist movement promoted by some sovereignist sectors, as well as the appeal to the useful vote of the Socialists to avoid a government of PP and Vox, will leave the independence movement in low hours.
“If we do not vote, we do not punish those who have done wrong, we punish those who will come, we have no right to do so,” said the leader of JxCat in Madrid at the final rally.
“Although we respect the right to abstention, we state that it is not useful to defend Catalonia”, Junts warned this Friday morning at an act in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, in which it was also pointed out that “it is a one-day decision that we can be paying for years”. “It does not bring us closer to independence, but it takes us away from the power to change things,” they remark from JxCat in a manifesto.
Beyond this aspect, the formation has recently proclaimed the failure of political Catalanism in the last 40 years when it comes to negotiating with the Government to solve structural and chronic problems in Catalonia, such as low budget execution, the investment deficit or the fiscal deficit. For this reason, they point out, it is necessary to “charge in advance” if it is negotiated and not do things the way they have been done up to now. “We will not agree to anything in Madrid in exchange for letting it run or for transfers,” Turull warned this Friday.
Thus, the aspiration of Junts is to be decisive in the next legislature. For this reason, the post-convergents claim to flee from the dichotomy of having to choose between PP or PSOE. “Catalonia!” they exclaim. “All the elections for Junts go from Catalonia”, ex-president Carles Puigdemont assured in this sense this Friday in a live videoconference at the final rally. “Neither left nor right, Catalonia; neither PSOE nor PP, Catalonia; neither Sánchez nor Feijó, Catalonia and president Puigdemont, Catalonia, Catalonia, Catalonia”, Nogueras later finished off.
If there is a scenario in which the post-convergents are decisive, there will be two options: negotiate with the Socialists –investing the PP is not foreseen in any case– and try to obtain revenues beforehand, or promote an institutional blockade in Congress that focuses internationally on the political conflict, trying to take advantage of the fact that Spain is holding the rotating presidency of the European Union this semester. If necessary, within the formation there will be debate.
Nogueras, who has pointed out on occasion that the minimum conditions to negotiate are that there be a referendum and that an amnesty law be approved and in others he has avoided setting requirements in advance, he has demanded from the rest of the independence movement, specifically from the Republicans, the commitment not to invest any president who does not transfer to the Government the powers to organize a binding consultation.
In the final stretch of the Junts campaign, it has had the presence of former president Mas and that of Trias as a claim for the useful and more moderate vote – the final rally took place this Friday in the same place where the convergent former mayor put the finishing touch to his campaign, in Jardinets de Gràcia, in Barcelona. In any case, it remains to be seen what impact the PDECat candidacies have on their numbers; in 2021 the division of the post-convergent space into two candidacies already had repercussions and relegated those of Turull and Borràs to third position.
The current Junts starting point is four parliamentarians, although the 2019 coalition, with PDECat, obtained eight parliamentarians.
In the formation they believe that they are in a position to repeat those numbers and ensure that both in Lleida and in Tarragona they can fight for the second seat, which could give them momentum.
