Ripoll’s situation remains uncertain when there are barely four days left for the constitution of the City Council. After the tripartite agreement of Esquerra, PSC and the CUP, which requires the external support of Junts per Ripoll, the post-convergents have distanced themselves and, as the second force in the municipal elections on May 28, they propose to lead an alternative.
The formation, which had Manoli Vega as a candidate, warns that without his assistance there is no viable alternative and expresses his discomfort at the agreement that the other three forces have closed without counting on them, when the talks were still underway.
In Ripoll, which had been governed by CiU and JxCat since 2011, the far-right pro-independence formation Aliança Catalana, led by Sílvia Orriols, was the force with the most votes and obtained six councilors.
In Junts there was some internal debate about which was the best option, whether to join an alternative or let Orriols lead the City Council and then evict him through a motion of no confidence, to try to show that his populist promises were not viable or that he lied in Campaign.
Laura Borràs put the public focus on the matter by speaking out along these lines, allowing the far-right to govern and then raising a motion of no confidence. She did so on Saturday in response to an anonymous Twitter profile. JxCat tried to settle the matter this Monday, by outright overruling its president, but the local Junts group expressed its discomfort at the imposition that came from Barcelona.
In any case, in the end the local management proposes to lead an alternative to Orriols from Junts per Ripoll as a second force. The three formations, ERC, PSC and the CUP, had announced last night in a statement that they had already closed an agreement and pressured Junts to give them support. In addition, this Tuesday they have held a press conference in which they have exposed the pact and have redoubled the pressure on the post-convergents.
In Junts, the press conference of the ERC, PSC and the CUP and the announcement of a tripartite agreement did not sit well, as they understood that there was tacticism on their part since negotiations for an alternative were underway.
The former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, spoke about the controversy, which has attracted media attention, especially after Laura Borràs’ message last Saturday on the subject, without mentioning the specific case of Ripoll, but came to say that it cannot be let the extreme right rule or agree with them because it goes against the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
The spokesperson for the Government, Patrícia Plaja, also spoke yesterday, warning that “there is nothing that justifies giving way and giving air to the extreme right.”
