There was more silence than joy during last night’s scrutiny in Argelers, because 35 seats are not enough to fly; but yes to land softly on them; but also to embitter the takeoff of Salvador Illa.
Votes to land on them also with a piece of height, because, after Puigdemont’s intervention at the close of the scrutiny, we all asked ourselves the same question: if we had understood correctly what he had come to say: that if Puigdemont did not rule in Palau, Pedro Sánchez would not rule the Moncloa.
The warning issued by the leader of Junts galvanized the dull atmosphere of the Argelers pavilion, where it had been remembered all night that the leader of Junts would cease to be one if he did not achieve the presidency of the Generalitat.
Maybe he won’t get it for seats – it was repeated among the militancy – but if Illa doesn’t let Puigdemont govern, Puigdemont won’t let Illa govern.
There were no votes to dream about and it was noticeable among the hundred positions that had been following the scrutiny; but to turn the remainder of Sánchez’s term into a nightmare and thus make Illa’s victory bitter. And that, at the end of the day, is also a victory in politics. First, the leader of Junts congratulated Illa elegantly for getting it and then he told her in three consecutive sentences while standing up that he wouldn’t be of much use to her.
It was the point at which the handful of militants who had arrived to celebrate victories after many hours in the car, despite the fact that it was a restricted event, were encouraged and rewarded the Junts leader’s announcement with the only ovation of the night.
Those faithful who occupied the stands were the most authentic thing of the day in this “non-place” between borders, the Argelers sports center from which they wanted to return from the “non-politics” of exile to the decision-making centers of Catalan politics. and Spanish and maybe one day again to the balcony of the Majestic. Jordi Pujol himself endorsed this trip to the country with or without the State the other day, amidst applause, but where the trains arrive on time, because yesterday the Rodalies trains – Puigdemont said again and Albert Batet had insisted – did not arrive “because of the ineptitude of the Spanish administration.”
The question that remained in the air last night after Puigdemont’s meteoric intervention, signing his victory in the polls, was whether it was a mere reaction or a response. A mere instinctive reaction to a result that disappointed his expectations, despite being better than what the polls predicted, or a thoughtful action to later deploy a planned strategy.
There is room to believe that in the leader of Junts today there is more than mere reaction: the sign in the pavilion: “Catalonia needs independence” is no longer the “We proclaim independence” that has taken us to Argelers, and in this campaign of the The pro-independence leader is on the poster in a seat and with his seat belt on: it has been a return to the future of a country where the policy is to make the trains arrive on time.
