The Esquerra Republicana candidate for the 23-J general elections, Gabriel Rufián, defended yesterday the need to try to maintain the dialogue table also with a hypothetical government chaired by the PP. Although the republican leader says that he is aware that what the populists want is to “jail” the pro-independence people instead of resolving the conflict, he advocates exhibiting before international opinion the declared rejection of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s formation to maintain the negotiation
In a press conference at the Efe Agency, Rufián pointed out that “it would be undemocratic and incomprehensible internationally to say that we only negotiate with some”, he pointed out, with reference to the PSOE, and that independence cannot bear the responsibility which would mean that it could only be negotiated if the socialists govern. Therefore, if you want to negotiate “from government to government”, as the dialogue on the Catalan question proposes, you must also try to do so in the event that the PP reaches Moncloa, he concluded.
The Republican candidate’s argument is in line with one of the sides of the independence struggle, the international endorsement, in particular the European one: “It would be incomprehensible internationally to say that we only negotiate with some”, and therefore it would be “good” that a Spain would have a “democratic, liberal and European” right capable of taking on the challenge, as the Government of Pedro Sánchez has done.
In this sense, Rufián gave as an example the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, when he facilitated the referendum in Scotland in 2014: “He was not a Marxist or a Leninist, but he campaigned for no and won” , remembered.
Rufián’s words come after having held an electoral event in Durango (Euskadi) on Monday with EH Bildu in which both formations called for “a great alliance” to achieve the independence of Euskadi and Catalonia. “If we do it simultaneously, it will be more difficult for them to defeat us”, alleged the president of Esquerra, Oriol Junqueras, while the leader of the Basque formation, Arnaldo Otegi, called to “formalize” this understanding after the 23 – J “whatever the scenario in the State”.
Rufián also insisted yesterday that, if Sánchez presented himself for an investiture after 23-J – “an increasingly hypothetical option” -, he would “have to respect” Catalonia, which translates into the fact that the price to give him support will be “higher and consensual”. The republican candidate stressed that the new president should commit to questions about infrastructure and services, the Catalan language and culture, laws, rights and freedoms: “If no, no”, he concluded.
