The coordinator of Catalonia in Common and president of the parliamentary group of En Comú Podem in Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, has officially announced that she is running in the primary elections that her formation has opened to elect the new candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat for the 12-M elections. Albiach has made the announcement from Montcada and Reixach (Vallès Occidental), a former bastion of the communes in Catalonia, and has the full support of the party apparatus to repeat as a candidate.
Accompanied by former mayor Laura Campos, Albiach said she chose the municipality “not by chance” but as a paradigm of the need to apply “progressive policies” from the Government. In an appearance from the Montcada medical center, which has been demanding a nighttime primary care service for 11 years that does not arrive despite having agreed with the ERC Executive in 2021, Albiach pointed out that the election of the municipality is “a declaration of intentions “of the commons in view of its purpose after 12-M.
“These elections will also concern health, education, housing and ecological transition,” he warned. Policies that the common people want to reinforce from the Government, not from the opposition, Albiach has pointed out. “Catalonia must move towards a new model with armored public services, that is why I am taking the step, because the presence of the common people in the Government is the guarantee” that these services will be armored, he justified.
The Catalan party has opened this primary process in the face of the “surprising” electoral call, although they doubt that it was a surprise for ERC and the PSC, thus fueling the idea that there was a conspiracy between these two parties to call the Catalan elections ahead of time. . At the moment only Albiach’s candidacy for these primaries is known, although the deadline for their presentation ends this Thursday at 00:00. To compete, candidates must present a total of 250 endorsements among the militancy.
There is no doubt in the party that Albiach will be the candidate but it remains to be seen what happens with Podem Catalunya. The options of re-editing the coalition under the umbrella of En Comú Podem are practically unviable. This Wednesday ends the deadline for the communication of the coalitions to the Electoral Board, but there is still time to hammer out an agreement that will allow Podem Catalunya leaders to be integrated into the common list. In any case, Albiach has not yet closed the door to participating together, but leaves the ball in Podem Catalunya’s court: “They have a new direction and must decide what they want to do. We are clear that the adversary is on the other side of the banner, we are open,” he stated.
Podem Catalunya has announced that it will run in these elections and to do so it is also immersed in a primary process. Although the state leadership assures that they are in talks with different parties to explore an agreement for the Catalan elections, such as ERC and the CUP, republican sources close the door to an agreement in this area. Podem would only have to compete on its own or try to join the common list, as to date.
Albiach took the opportunity to criticize Pere Aragonès’s initiative to present on his own a unique financing proposal for Catalonia. For the future candidate of the Commons, it is an “electoralist” initiative, which “arrives late” and which should have emerged from the consensus between the Catalan parties.
