This will be the fifth time that Gabriel Rufián (Santa Coloma de Gramenet, 1982) stands for ERC in the general elections. Four as head of the list; one, in 2019, as number two, behind Oriol Junqueras. Rufián has softened his tone, but not his messages, and charges against the PSOE and Sumar while he calls for a unity to the independence movement that now seems impossible.
They focus their attacks on Sumar, with the PSC perhaps being their main rival.
They are not attacks. We counter political exercises. Whenever I talk about Yolanda Díaz, I have to clarify one thing that I never have to clarify with any other politician: that I have no personal problem with her. My criticisms are not for an electoral issue. Two years ago we talked about it, since the bridges were broken with the negotiation of the labor reform. Everyone knows that I am on the left and I have a tendency to be harsh with those who I believe can do much more.
Yolanda Díaz has assured that the referendum “is not on the table.”
I would like everything to be easier, but nothing that has happened in the last four years has happened because the PSOE or the Podemos ministries wanted from day one. It has all been thanks to the fact that Esquerra and Bildu have been involved in improving the Government’s legislative activity. Abascal I know what it is: pure fascism. I have been singled out. I am proud to annoy the Nazis. But I am very concerned about people that I am supposed to have by my side like Yolanda Díaz. This way of destroying the sovereignist coalition that was going to govern Barcelona… And I am very concerned about what has happened with Irene Montero. I appreciate it, I value it personally and politically, and I refuse to remain silent in the face of cowardly finger-pointing exercises by fascism. And I ask Sumar: have they sold Irene Montero in exchange for being well treated by some spaces of power?
Well treated also in exchange for saying no to a referendum?
It’s an example.
Has ERC lost support with Sumar since Podemos has been diluted?
It often surprises me that there is still more empathy and affinity with a Podemos deputy from Jaén, Zamora or Lugo towards the self-determination process of Catalonia, than a deputy from the commons of l’Hospitalet, Vic or Barcelona. It hurts me that a supposedly Catalan party, which ends up being a branch like the PSC, ends up doing these things. Because in the end when you have to vote between the commons and the PSC, you will end up voting for the PSC. Why does someone have to vote for the commons today? What is the difference with the PSC? What is the difference between Sumar and the PSOE? I don’t know.
The CUP accuses ERC of sedating the independence movement.
Vehí and Botran have been extraordinary parliamentarians. I feel very close to the positions of the CUP, I share practically all their diagnoses. But help us try to defend Catalonia.
You are not refuting what they say.
We are an unequivocally pro-independence, anti-fascist, progressive party. ERC has starred in and led the independence movement for a long time when we were very few. If it were up to us, tomorrow Catalonia would be independent.
Are the abstentionists one more adversary?
Surprisingly now they are not heard so much anymore. Perhaps someone has done the numbers… I have doubts as to whether or not it is good to talk about these campaigns. The real and sincere disaffection towards politics does worry me. We live in a very anti-political moment that always coincides with when the left governs. Every time the left governs, the right has been able to inoculate the “everyone is equal, I don’t vote anymore”. The “worse is better” is a fallacy. The worse, the better for the privileged. You can consider abstention from a certain position of privilege. When you live so well, you don’t care.
What is the point of facilitating the investiture of Sánchez if, for example, at the budget level it does not comply?
It is not new. The governments of the PP and the PSOE have repeatedly failed to comply with Catalonia. Until now, even when Convergència had a significant weight, the fault lay with the one who governed: the PP or the PSOE. Now it is always Esquerra’s fault. What is the alternative? We are staying home? But what else do we do? Let them help us. There are people who say: make independence. OK. When. But it would be nice to reach 70, 80, 90 or 100 percent of the people. And even reaching 100% will surely have to be negotiated. Miríam Nogueras (Junts) has said it: politics is negotiation. It’s a step.
Do you see Nogueras negotiating?
89% of the initiatives of the Spanish Government have been approved by ERC having negotiated them and Junts, without negotiating, around 85%.
The big question would be not so much how the PSOE is forced to agree, but how it is forced to comply?
The only answer I can think of is to try to be more under pressure. If all the pro-independence and sovereign parties had been able to go together in any of the negotiations, everything would have been much better. The audiovisual law was negotiated by ERC, here the menda, alone. And I always wondered every day why. There was a very powerful letter that would have forced the PSOE to do much more: the Barcelona Provincial Council. Letter for the audiovisual or for any other law. Imagine if Junts had told the PSOE “if this is not approved we will break the Barcelona Provincial Council”.
Was the Pegasus scandal also a very powerful letter? Did it favor the negotiation for the reform of the Penal Code?
The reform of the Penal Code, the pardons… were thanks to Esquerra, but also thanks to the fact that Catalan civil society and even people who at the time agreed to put them in prison, saw that it was useless, that it was useless, it was absurd, a shame. And at a European level: the positions of supranational entities that said that “enough is enough”. All of that made it easy.
Social politics. What proposals will you take forward if they are decisive for governability?
We are focused on three aspects: school, family and work. These are things that everyone wants to go well. There is a virus, which is delinquency. We ask for a sanctioning regime. The SMEs that PP and Vox – sometimes the PSOE – talk about are ACS, Iberdrola… these large companies that sometimes do not pay should not be able to apply for funds and public tenders. Rodalies: we ask for the transfer, but without cheating, with the required funds. And mortgages: there are many people who suffer to know what they will pay… it would be good to bump them up with variable rates.
And what role will they play if PP and Vox govern?
Four years ago the debate was whether I was capable of negotiating, because I came from a legislature in confrontation with the PP. And now it’s the opposite: there are many people who tell me that now we have to confront.
Puigdemont had already said in October of last year that he had been offered pardons by emissaries of the PSOE. Why does he think he’s saying it again now?
I am very prudent and for a long time when I am asked about someone from Junts I try not to answer, because Junts still has a brutal capacity to generate media noise that we are not capable of counteracting. And because it is the best scenario for the PSOE.
Why do they say now that they have negotiated pardons? Why haven’t they said it before?
I have been in an office negotiating pardons. I’ve been saying it for two years. I am very proud that ERC used its bargaining power to get nine people out of prison. And I have no mania to say it. Yes we did and would do it again.
Are these elections the last dance for Ruffian?
I always think that it will be the last interview, that it is the last plenary session, the last debate because I think it is healthy to think about it. I will be here until those who brought me, who are Oriol Junqueras, Joan Tardà and Marta Rovira, tell me “up to here”. But I am absolutely prepared to leave tomorrow if necessary.
