“The Government of Catalonia will be decided from Catalonia,” says Salvador Illa, but the consequences of that decision could reach Moncloa. Illa is the candidate to beat for the independence movement and Junts and ERC feed his speech by including the future of Pedro Sánchez’s Government in the 12-M equation. The Parliament’s arithmetic is unrelated to the PSOE-PP confrontation that dominates the political-media space based in Madrid, so the polarization in Catalonia is divided between the vote for Illa and the useful vote among independentists.
The vetoes cast in the campaign may have little to do with the scenario revealed at the polls. “When the equation has more unknowns than certainties, it has no solution,” repeats a convergent historical drawing the blockage. “We have to wait until we have the numbers in hand to make decisions,” they point out at ERC.
For the Republicans, the “perverse” obsession with advancing scenarios causes a certain fatigue in the candidate Pere Aragonès who insists on his roadmap: referendum, financing, public services; while Carles Puigdemont tries to focus the debate on the “Catalonia-Spain” axis, exhibiting the key to governability in Spain.
No one is oblivious to the repercussions of 12-M on the stability of the Sánchez Government, which is once again the protagonist of Illa’s campaign in Montmeló today. The president has concentrated his incursions in the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona, ??where the PSC can shore up not only victory but a margin that allows him to maneuver to run for the presidency. Alberto Núñez Feijóo also seeks to revive the PP in Catalonia with a weekend tour.
Sánchez depends on ERC and Junts in Madrid, but it is Puigdemont who gets the most political benefit from his agreements. Puigdemont and Aragonès agree in pointing out Illa as “the Moncloa candidate” and will reinforce that story in the coming days. “Is there a civil governor? Civil governor was Lluís Companys, I don’t know if you remember,” a prominent socialist responded yesterday with a half smile. After Sánchez’s blow to the Catalan campaign, the PSC prefers monotony to headlines. “It is the tone that the candidate must maintain,” they insist. The problem is that Sánchez is immersed in his particular plebiscite against PP and Vox, with the risk of leaving the baron who supports him and with whom he confesses to having an “eternal debt” in the background.
Illa said yesterday in the Tribuna Barcelona forum that “to think that the government of Catalonia will be decided in Madrid is a very un-Catalan approach” and recommended to his opponents from Junts and ERC that they stop “threatening, blocking, vetoing…”. “No one has a preferential right to govern, neither in Catalonia nor in Spain.” However, after opening the door to a “transversal” Government with the post-convergents, he slammed it shut: “There will be no pact. Puigdemont is the blockade.” The socialist candidate now appeals even to independentists disenchanted with their leaders.
At Junts, they dust off the lessons of 2006 to remember that the PSC is not dependent on the PSOE when what is at stake is the Generalitat. “The decision is Illa’s,” they admit, so they reinforce messages that minimize the PSC leader’s room for maneuver vis-à-vis Sánchez and increase the volume of Sánchez’s dependence on Junts votes. Puigdemont flatly rejects a pact with the PSC and digs into the Republican ranks so that Aragonès also closes that door. After the last tripartite, ERC remained at ten deputies (it lost eleven) and Convergència rose fourteen, they remember. Junts’ story to drown out ERC involves displaying the power of its seven deputies in Congress: “knowing how to say no in Madrid and reaching beneficial agreements.”
The unity of the independence movement is a chimera but without it the presidency of the Generalitat is also a chimera. Illa will not make Puigdemont president and leaving the independentists out of the governability of Catalonia could break Sánchez’s majority in Congress in “3, 2, 1…”, the post-convergents warn. An Illa Government leaves Junts with no incentive to be flexible in Madrid. “If they do not give us 100% of the taxes, there will be no State budget,” Puigdemont insisted yesterday, calling for unity of action in Madrid.
It is President Aragonès who has stressed on numerous occasions the importance of ERC holding the presidency of the Generalitat during the last legislature to protect the negotiation process with the PSOE Government. If ERC must leave the Palau, what will its deputies do in Congress? “The PSOE must comply with the agreements,” they limit themselves to responding.
No one can ignore that the actors are the same in the race for the Generalitat and for the stability of the Sánchez Government, which fuels the obsession with the day after 12-M. Ballot boxes can surprise and create uncontrollable variables.
