The debate on the investiture has fallen under its own weight in Esquerra, although just after the Catalan elections of May 12 it had intoned, leave us alone, that first we have to resolve our internal mess in every way. The calendar rules, but so does necessity: the last day for the constitutive session of the Parliament to be held is June 10; The first debate to choose the president of the Generalitat has to be June 25 at the latest. And ERC is risking as much or more of its political future with the investiture of Salvador Illa, that of Carles Puigdemont – with less probability – or that of anyone.
Esquerra has ridden for four days through the scene of emotions characteristic after an election. Given the collapse of the results – from 33 to 20 deputies – and during the election night and also the following day, Pere Aragonès himself unequivocally refused to establish talks with the PSC or with Junts to appoint a president of the Generalitat. “We are not here to facilitate an investiture of the PSC and we will not participate in operations that require the agreement of Junts and the PSC,” said the head of the Catalan Government.
On the fifth day is when the ERC leadership, after the trickle of future resignations of its leaders, landed to admit that it will have to address the investiture debate before that of the party’s own repair process. Thus, on Friday was when the executive of the republican formation met again, more calmly than on previous occasions, to appoint its general secretary, Marta Rovira, as coordinator of the negotiations for the constitution of the Parliament’s Table and of the later ones on the investiture. Likewise, the militancy will have to decide on the possible agreements that the leadership can reach for the election of the president of the Generalitat.
It is evident that the constitution of the Parliament is ahead on the calendar, but a scenario in which the PSC favors the presidency of ERC is rejected today by both parties, because the letters of a pact to invest Salvador Illa would be revealed shortly after , and Esquerra, with respect to the investiture, also needs time to digest both a yes and a no.
The national congress of the party to be reborn is not until November 30. “There are more than six months left, enough time,” they say in the training. So the first special category mountain stage is the investiture.
In ERC there is division on this point. There are those in the leadership who are convinced that supporting Illa would be an almost fatal blow. But as the days go by, the feeling grows, according to what they say in the party, that a repeat election would be suicide. The PSC and Junts are on the rise, while Esquerra would not even have a candidate with a face and eyes.
The option of voting in favor of the PSC candidate is seen by some sectors as the most favorable among the undesirable ones. Voting in favor in exchange for “a high price” – maintaining the Rodalies transfer plan, agreeing to negotiate financing, free all early childhood education, etc. – and then going to the opposition is a possibility that Joan Tardà has raised, former ERC deputy.
Investing Puigdemont is much more complicated, “if not arithmetically impossible,” they point out in Esquerra. In any case, in the formation they are convinced that with Junts there are many pending issues, starting with the moment he left the Government, October 2022, and continuing with the times they consider that the post-convergents have made a tie with the socialists in the Parliament to erode ERC.
Republicans will have to decide. Rovira takes on the challenge of coordinating the negotiations, but will leave the party once there is a new leadership on November 30. The fact that neither she nor Aragonès are beyond this date encourages the belief that future commanders will not be held responsible for the decision, no matter how much it has been endorsed by the militancy. Not even Oriol Junqueras, who will resign from office just after the June 9 elections to run, most certainly, for re-election to continue leading the party.
ERC has a difficult time and it could be affected precisely because of all the internal struggle in these elections. For now, however, the polls maintain the three deputies they already obtained with the alliance with EH Bildu and the BNG. And it will not be until after this new call to the polls that Esquerra will take the negotiations for the investiture seriously.
