The Junts leadership disavowed its president, Laura Borràs, yesterday over the governance of Ripoll, where Aliança Catalana, the pro-independence ultra-right, won. At the executive meeting there were forceful interventions from various leaders, such as the general secretary, Jordi Turull; the president of Parliament, Anna Erra; or the leader of the post-convergent group in the Catalan Chamber, Albert Batet; as well as Toni Morral or Aurora Madaula, contrary to what was expressed by the party leader, who said that she was not in favor of a sanitary cordon. The thesis of her classmates, on the other hand, is that no “institutional gap” can be left to the extreme right. “Junts’ position in this regard is unquestionable,” Míriam Nogueras said after the meeting.
The executive of Junts now hopes that the local leadership of the party, which governed the capital of Ripollès with Jordi Munell as mayor since 2011, will decide on the formula used to articulate an alternative that prevents the Catalan Alliance from governing.
However, the next battlefront for Junts may be at the local level, where great discomfort has been caused by the attempt to dictate from Barcelona who should govern in Ripoll. In statements to La Vanguardia, the party’s candidate, Manoli Vega (Munell, who is a parliamentary deputy, did not repeat 28-M as head of the list), stressed that all options remain open, including giving Sílvia the mayoralty Orriols, the ultra leader.
“It seems that this is becoming a matter of the country, when it is a question of Ripoll. What we cannot allow is that a pact be imposed on us from Barcelona, ??because we are the ones who will have to explain it to our citizens. The people are divided”, says Vega, who stresses that Aliança Catalana obtained 30.7% of the votes (almost double that of Junts) and was the first force in the 13 municipal tables.
The full investiture is scheduled for Saturday at noon. “We have the council minutes and we’ll see what we do,” adds the Junts candidate. She does not hide that she is in favor of letting Orriols govern in a minority and she is forced to negotiate with the rest of the formations, without ruling out presenting, when the time comes, a motion of no confidence. “When you talk to the townspeople, it’s what they want. And it tells you above all people who have not voted for it ”, argues the JxCat candidate.
However, Vega admits that for now he is only negotiating with the leftist parties, although without success. Orriols, despite his victimist discourse, has not shown any interest in speaking with the rest of the parties to gain support.
“We will be the ones who explain to our citizens what we have decided, and the reason cannot be just to veto the extreme right”
Junts has dropped from eight to three councilors, and everything indicates that their voters are the ones who have bought Orriols’ speech the most, which has risen from one to six. He promises to “save Ripoll” from Islamization, with a speech modeled on that of so many ultra formations in other European countries.
Aliança Catalana, a split from the Front Nacional de Catalunya, is a party born after the shock caused by the 17-A attacks in Ripoll, where the young terrorists had grown up. While the rest of the parties chose to turn the page on what happened, Orriols has not stopped delving into the wound.
In the last legislature, the rest of the formations applied a strong sanitary cordon to Orriols (the only councilor for the ultra party). “Clearly (the cordon) has failed,” says the Junts candidate. In these elections we have presented six parties, with six lists and six programs. And they were all legal. If they have to put sanitary cords, they should be put before ”.
