For the first time in history, the nationalist majority, now pro-independence, has broken since the 1980s. This is Illa’s impact in these elections. Victories have many fathers and ‘Father Illa’, on this occasion, is the main one.
It all started three years ago. With a decision by Miquel Iceta that shows his political greatness. He took a step back with a resolution that was summarized in one sentence: Catalonia needs a president and not a candidate. The “Illa effect” was born. And the result was that the PSC won elections in Catalonia again 13 years later, gaining 16 deputies and for the first time winning in votes and tying in seats in Catalan elections. Toni Bolaño tells it in his Moncloa book.
And in 2024? Salvador Illa has resoundingly won the Catalan elections. Let’s put this victory in perspective. In 1999, Pasqual Maragall already led in votes, but not in seats. Maragall obtained only 5,000 more votes than Jordi Pujol but four fewer seats. This time, Illa has obtained almost 200,000 votes and nine more seats than Carles Puigdemont, whom by the way Pujol gave his support at the end of the campaign explaining in a video that “Convergència” was returning. One of several mistakes made. In 2003, Maragall won, even though he lost. He fell back 10 seats and, however, was able to form the tripartite party. Maragall defeated Artur Mas by only 7,000 votes although Mas took four more seats from him. But, this time, he has also given his support to Puigdemont. Genealogy. Absolute victory for Illa in votes and seats. And for the first time in history, the nationalist majority, now pro-independence, has broken since the 1980s. This is Illa’s impact in these elections. Victories have many fathers and “Father Illa”, on this occasion, is the main one. Participation has been similar to the pre-procés elections.
A new car, the “white Ferrari”, because this time the PSC was in white to project maximum transversality. And not just be the left, but everything that is not right or extreme right in a Catalonia that, like all of Europe, is moving to the right. For the team that has participated in the campaign it has been “like the last dance.” To place ourselves, not so much in the translation into seats, which is what is important to form a government, but in popular support. If we add the votes of Junts and ERC we see that they only get about 150,000 more votes than the PSC alone. In the same way, the aggregation of the votes of the PP and Vox vastly exceeds ERC in votes and seats. This gives us a measure of the weight of each of the electoral spaces. But for every vote for ERC there has been a vote for PP or Vox. That’s the equation. And remember that it was Pere Aragonés who put the Catalans ahead – nine months earlier – in the run-up to the European Championships. These are the foundations on which to build Catalonia in this new scenario. Multiple alliances, great diversity, brimming with plurality.
The victory of the PSC certifies that we are in the post-process stage. Illa proposed opening a new stage to lead the third great transformation of Catalonia based on two verbs: unite and serve. And he has clearly won. Look at the support that the Amnesty law has in its translation into seats in the Parliament of Catalonia. More than 80% in Catalonia, who are also part of the plurinational, peripheral and transversal majority that supports Pedro Sánchez.
The 80% policy wins. And it loses 50%, the sum of the votes and seats of the pro-independence formations that support the self-determination referendum. We are already in the post-process, in that 80% scenario to build a fit for Catalonia in a plurinational State in the south of the EU. The sum of Junts, ERC, CUP and AC does not, therefore, reach 50%, nor the 68 deputies. Although Junts, ERC and CUP have said no to AC. 80% spoke, that’s why there will be no blockade. As we anticipated four months ago, AC obtained representation. Ripoll, being Marca Hispánica, is far from the M-30. Most likely, for a Ripoll voter, what happens in Perpignan is closer to them than what Isabel Díaz Ayuso tells them. The language, the forms. Ripoll is closer to France than Little Caracas. This OPNI (Unidentified Political Object) has entered the Parliament with force, but it has already conditioned Vox and the PP, entering the puddle of Islamophobia and immigration. They have been art and essay elections. The “first dance” was Miquel’s. But “the last dance” was Salvador’s. There is nothing more powerful than affection. This is how Salvador Illa won.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo has called a demonstration for May 26, to talk about amnesty and corruption as a battering ram against Sánchez. The next OPNI will tell us about something else. If Catalonia is already in the post-procés, Feijóo insists on staying in the process. His results come for other reasons. The amnesty is amortized and what is coming is future terror. In February we talk about Galicia or Saxony. And this past week you saw what happened to the Dresden SPD candidate. Everything flows, everything changes. And the PSOE can win the next European elections.
My colleagues Juan Francisco Caro, Salvador Giménez and Carles Salom were right about the results in Catalonia. The convergent gene exists and destroys independence as we knew it. And another observation: OPNIs will continue. Podemos was born from the Europeans in 2014. From there, in 2019 Vox was consolidated, which far from withering, is reviving today. What will be the European OPNI in 2024? The CIS has advanced it. There may be “three rights” again: PP Vox “The party is over” by Alvise Pérez. We don’t go into evaluating it, we just tell it. Write it down. Have a seat or not.
