With less than a week to go before the formal start of the campaign for the municipal elections on May 28, Junts has entered the final stretch of the pre-campaign surrounding the headliner, Xavier Trias, of more than 200 candidates throughout Catalonia. An exhibition of muscle to launch a message against the risk of abstention, and to “rebel” against what they consider the “bad government” of the Republican Left in the Generalitat, with the chaotic episode of the oppositions for the officials of the Catalan administration, which will have to be repeated in July, still recent, and with the approval of the proposal for the drought in Parliament this week.
Yesterday, the formation celebrated a big event in a municipal key in Poblenou in which representatives of all the vegueries, the four candidates from the provincial capitals – Toni Postius (Lleida), Gemma Geis (Girona), Jordi Sendra ( Tarragona) and Trias (Barcelona) – and the leaders of the party, its president, Laura Borrà s, in charge of starting the parliaments; the former president of the formation, Carles Puigdemont, through a video, and the general secretary, Jordi Turull, who put the icing on the cake with the final speech.
The party’s intention was to make a show of strength focused on the electoral race, which they achieved better than they could have expected a few months ago. Now they have the wind in their favor in the polls in the Catalan capital, where the formation has a chance of winning with the converging ex-mayor.
Beyond the specific message of each local candidate, there was a common thread in the interventions from the lectern: criticism of ERC and vindication of the country model in the economic and social spheres that JxCat defends, all this without neglecting the independence flag, although among the audience there were also flags, not just stars.
The mayor of Igualada, Marc Castells, warmed up the engines and demanded that on May 29 Catalonia “wakes up” dyed with the “green of the future, of hope and of good government against the yellow of bad government”, a direct allusion to the Republicans. The work was finished in the last speech by Turull, who warned that, “if you don’t have the best attitude, what happens happens, as we see more and more often”.
The general secretary, who launched several indirects at ERC, remarked that the elections “are about values, attitude and ways of understanding how politics is done”, and he regretted that “there are political forces that are institutionalizing and normalizing incompetence and sectarianismâ€. “Some, instead of solving problems, create them”, continued the Junts leader, who asked to “rebel” against “the institutionalization of incompetence and sectarianism” and to “turn this situation upside down” urns “Rebelling and criticizing the Government’s management of the opposition is not electoralism or partisanship. It is to love the country and they have made us feel ashamed”, insisted Turull, who ended up complaining that “a country capable of organizing the best major world events, such as the Olympic Games or the Mobile World Congress, the referendum of the 1-O or the largest mobilizations in Europe”, has a Government “incapable of organizing simple oppositions”.
Puigdemont asked that his party’s basket of votes not be left empty. “Whatever happens, everything is taken advantage of from the Junts vote”, he assured. “We must show that it is a basket that is still full”, remarked the former president of the Generalitat, with a message addressed to those who do not plan to vote.
They also focused on the sectoral policies that the party has uncomplicatedly defended in recent months, especially since last summer’s congress and since Junts left the Executive of Pere Aragonès in October.
Thus, the training claimed the creation of economic activity as a formula to guarantee social justice and economic progress. They spoke in this sense Trias; the candidate from Reus, Teresa Pallarès, and the one from Tarragona, Sendra, who wants to lower taxes for young entrepreneurs.
“There are still political formations that bet on degrowth, such as Ada Colau in Barcelona, ​​which puts obstacles in the way of those who want to lift the blinds every day, those who want to undertake and those who want progress”, criticized Pallarès, in charge of the finances of the match “The way to create opportunities is to create wealth and then redistribute it. Make things easy and encourage economic activity and help SMEs and the self-employed”, he concluded.
Trias, who claimed that Junts is a strong party that supports its candidates, made similar considerations. “The only way there is social justice and progress is to create sustainable economic activity,” he said. “This is not going against the sectors. We must not be against tourism. We have to explain which tourism we want and which we don’t want”, said the former mayor.
Despite the fact that the leitmotif of the meeting was the elections of 28-M, Borràs took the opportunity to charge the Electoral Board and accuse it of rights violations.
