It is a classic in the last week of any electoral campaign: making an appeal to the undecided. There is another specific fact at this point, which is to appeal to the abstentionists. Yesterday, Pere Aragonès addressed both markets, perhaps also because the undecided voter tends to abstain. In any case, the ERC candidate assured that he is convinced that “people who doubt whether to vote or not, or which party to vote for” will end up opting for his party, “because it is the proposal that generates the most confidence.”
Yesterday’s CIS survey indicates that there are 39.7% of voters who affirm that they have not yet decided on their vote. ERC is one of the formations that has the most border votes compared to others, and the Republicans consider that a large group of undecided people may lean towards them.
In any case, Aragonés, to attract all these potential voters, in a press conference organized by Efe, used two factors. First, that his Government and Esquerra have been the ones who have managed to advance, as he said, the path of negotiation to resolve the political conflict. And second, he resorted to the latest numbers, such as that unemployment yesterday dropped again “to historic lows”, or that 30% of the budgets have been allocated to Health and Education.
“If citizens base their trust on May 12 on what we have done in the last three years (…), they will see that their option is Esquerra,” the president stressed.
Oriol Junqueras was much more extensive when reviewing the list of the Government’s work. In Manresa, where ERC held its campaign event in the afternoon, the president of the Republicans highlighted that Catalonia is “at a historical record” in exports, foreign investments, female employment rate, teachers in preschool, primary and secondary school, and in residential places for the elderly. But many other things have been left in the pipeline and could have been alleviated, Junqueras said, if the 2024 budgets had been approved. That is why he assured that he does not understand voting for forces that are dedicated to “poking the finger in the eye.” .
Be that as it may, of the studies and surveys, in ERC they only look at the rates of abstentionists or undecided people. They make the rest of the data irrelevant. Aragonès did it yesterday. “In the general elections, according to the polls, Feijóo would be president today (…) The vote is in charge and not the polls,” he reasoned given the fact that the vast majority of polls place ERC behind the PSC and Together.
Aragonès prefers not to talk about surveys, nor about pacts. Salvador Illa had assured hours before that he would want to explore a new tripartite PSC-ERC-Comunes. “I am the only candidate who is saying what proposals he will make if he is president,” lamented Aragonès, later saying that the socialist candidate “is disoriented.” It proves it, he said, that these days he has expressed “that he wants to govern alone, that he wants a government with the support of other left-wing parties or that he wants to reach an understanding with Junts.” “When you talk about chairs, you end up trying to play that game of where the ball is, with whom you try to make agreements,” the president justified.
