In the PSC they exhibit a certainty. A socialist will chair the Barcelona Provincial Council. The how is another story, but her calculations do not include giving Junts and ERC control of an institution with a budget of 1,200 million and 4,100 officials. Salvador Illa is a man of sustained and patient efforts. After the mayoralty of Barcelona fell on the side of Jaume Collboni, the leader of the PSC waits for Junts to resolve the internal debate that has arisen that calls into question a provincial alliance that has provided so many revenues in the last four years. Illa waits, but he has possible and probable alternatives, beyond public statements, without even paying the toll of allying himself with Jordi Ballart, who abruptly broke with the PSC in Terrassa.
If Xavier Trias were mayor, there would be no dilemma in the leadership of Junts. The candidate for Barcelona was given a free hand not only for the list and directing his policy of pacts, but with the intention that the “Trias spirit” permeate the party’s narrative. The moral authority of the mayor of Barcelona sitting on the executive could moderate the strategy on all fronts and contain essentialist debates. The mayor’s office has vanished and has disrupted the converging plans within Junts.
Without the mayor’s office but with the pride claimed by Trias, the convergent return was made official at the mass dinner organized in Premià de Mar in solidarity with former councilor Miquel Buch, who will be judged from Wednesday by the hearing of Carles Puigdemont in Belgium. Jordi Pujol, Artur Mas, Trias, Josep Rull, Quim Forn, Meritxell Budó, Damià Calvet, Jaume Giró, Victòria Alsina, Lourdes Ciuró, Gemma Geis, Neus Munté… No trace of Laura Borràs or Quim Torra, whose advisor was almost repudiated . “The most similar to a converging party” in which it was difficult to fit the balances managed by Jordi Turull, also present.
Doubts accumulate at the gates of a campaign that Junts will start with the Buch trial -Puigdemont will testify by videoconference as a witness- and the ruling of the General Court of the EU on the former president’s immunity. “In Madrid nobody cries for Barcelona” after the PSC-comunes-PP alliance, but the 23-J campaign has a slogan –unofficial: que us bombin– and t-shirts. “Going from zero to one hundred with the PSC” and governing together in the Provincial Council is what now grips the leadership despite having been displaced in those of Tarragona and Lleida by a PSC-ERC agreement. The Republicans assure that they do not have any cards in the negotiation and Oriol Junqueras rules out copying an agreement like the one that he has spent four years criticizing. Meanwhile, at the PSC headquarters, they smile and wait.
It would be “easier” to decide after 23-J, but the answer should arrive next week and the “photo” during the first days of the campaign. Municipal pressure increases on Turull. “We’ve already left the Government, that’s enough”, “for practical purposes, it’s PSC or nothing”, “it’s a red line”… The Socialists have an interest in fostering cross-alliances with the independentistas. With the blocks dissolved in Catalonia and Illa as a socialist stronghold, the PSC wants to keep all options open for the Catalan elections. But Puigdemont’s opposition to the pacts with the Socialists and the defense that will be made of the strategy of confrontation with the State after knowing the European sentence also affects Turull.
With the right-wing wave announced on 23-J comes the second dilemma. How much is the Junts vote worth to a possible investiture of Pedro Sánchez? Several party polls show a clear victory for the PSC in Catalonia and punish Junts’ resistanceism less than the ERC’s government pragmatism, on a downward curve. Hence, the Republican leadership tries to turn the discourse of the anti-fascist barricade, in which the PSC stands as a useful vote, to the defense of the interests of Catalonia. And the role of Pere Aragonès will be reinforced in search of authority to lead his “democratic front” before a PP-Vox government.
Prop up Aragones? Third dilemma in Junts. A new Republican electoral coup does not have to precipitate the calendar, although both the PSC and Junts see it as almost inevitable, so the post-convergents will speed up the circulation of their candidate. The Catalan appointment with the polls is scheduled, for now, from autumn 2024.
