The leader of the opposition in Catalonia and of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has claimed this Friday the “fundamental contribution” that his party has had to overcome the independence process, which he defined as “ten lost years, very bad for Catalonia and for the whole of Spain”, which the Catalan socialists have helped to leave behind, he said, thanks to measures such as pardons or the Amnesty law.
In his first intervention at the XV ordinary congress of the party, at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya, Illa assured that “the PSC, I and Catalonia, are prepared to open a new stage” that leaves behind the successive independence governments, a company in which the Government of Pedro Sánchez also has high hopes for.
The leader, who this Saturday will be elected again as first secretary of the PSC and candidate for the Catalan elections on May 12, was supported at the opening of this congress, which will last the entire weekend, by the former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who is currently one of the main political leaders of the PSOE and a recurring figure in electoral campaigns.
Illa presented the management report of his time at the head of the party, since he took the reins in December 2021, a period in which the PSC has become the first party in Catalonia after having won all the electoral contests – the Catalan elections in 2021, municipal elections in May 2023 and general elections in July of the same year. But above all, it is a period in which the PSC has not only dedicated itself to opposing the ERC Government, but also to “building a solid, consistent, viable, realistic, ambitious and hopeful alternative,” remarked the socialist leader.
In this task, Illa said he had managed to establish the PSC as a serious alternative to “ten lost years, of circling the same idea, of ups and downs to end up in the same place, co-starred by ERC and Junts with four presidents.” , and which in his opinion leave a “devastating” balance in areas such as education, renewable energy and infrastructure.
Faced with this management, the socialist leader claimed the fundamental contribution of his party to overcome this stage together with people like former President Zapatero and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and that his driving force has been “generosity”, “courage”. ” and “conviction”, and not the electoral calculator, he assured.
Illa was thus referring to the pardons and the recently approved Amnesty law, which he justified because “neither Catalonia nor Spain deserve to be paralyzed or castled in 2017.” And in this fiery defense he agreed with Zapatero, who pointed out that the norm represents “the best spirit of the Constitution: concord and reconciliation,” he said, and that in his opinion it will mark “a before and after” and will be “one of the laws that will enter the history of Spain.
The former president rejected the idea that criminal law could replace politics because “the more criminal law, the longer it will take for politics to achieve the objectives of democracy,” he warned. But he also criticized “the independence movement’s journey to nowhere,” warning that “we do not want heroes or martyrs,” in reference to former president Puigdemont.
Zapatero’s defense of the amnesty was as fiery as his conviction in Illa’s victory at the polls, an “authentic, solid, credible and winning” leader, he said, who predicted that he would win “the most important elections of the last 25 years.” in Catalonia and in Spain.”
