The electoral campaign in Catalonia is leading to a debate about possible pacts after 12-M and about political forms. This last question, opened by the reflective period of Pedro Sánchez and his denunciation of the “mud” and the insult that in his opinion the right uses, continued this week with the outburst dedicated to the unionist Matías Carnero – who closes the PSC list for Barcelona- to the Junts candidate Carles Puigdemont. None of these attitudes fit well with Salvador Illa’s campaign plan and message, focused on political management and respect for the adversary formally. That is why this Saturday the President of the Government gave a piece of cake and a piece of sand, lashing out at the right for muddying politics but appealing for a victory “as broad as possible” for Illa to “manage coexistence and progress together” in Catalonia. .
The president’s intervention had two very different parts. In the first, dedicated to Catalonia, he highlighted his commitment to the so-called reunion agenda and placed a “dilemma”: the “blockade, paralysis, uncertainty and instability” that, although he did not mention it, he attributes to Junts, or a “ “wide victory” on 12-M that will favor there being “more stability and more government strength so that Catalonia advances in rights and coexistence.” To reinforce the dilemma, the president recalled: “They were two right-wing presidents, in Moncloa and in Palau, those who led to bankruptcy in Catalonia, and it will be two socialist presidents who are going to make Catalonia advance in rights, opportunities and coexistence (…) We manage the pandemic together and we are going to manage coexistence and progress in Catalonia together. and in Spain,” he promised.
Politically, PSC and Junts duel, evidencing their incompatibility to form a government, and this directly challenges ERC, the third in contention according to most surveys. The risk of blockade, and therefore, of electoral repetition, floats in the air, which is why the socialists stir up fear of the right by trying to unite the left-wing vote. Furthermore, the fight between socialists and post-convergents has a derivative in Madrid as a consequence of the uncomfortable role of Junts in Congress, which is why Illa has no qualms about questioning the disenchanted independentist with his demand to gather “enough strength to govern.”
Sánchez supported the PSC strategy in Montmeló, verbalizing Illa’s mantra that “a lost decade has been suffered in opportunities, rights and social cohesion in Catalonia”, which is why he was willing to support a “new stage of progress and not paralysis , of coexistence and non-confrontation.” The president took Illa’s victory at the polls for granted but “we have to win widely, much more than in the last elections,” he noted. For his part, he said he was “willing, with more desire and more strength than ever.”
For the rest, Sánchez once again stirred up the scarecrow of the right and the “muddy” into which in his opinion they have turned the “noble” profession of politics. A way of acting that, according to what he said, has an “ideologist”, the former president José María Aznar, to whom he attributed a call to “intensify the harassment of the progressive coalition government” when he said that “whoever can do, let him do” to stop the Executive. “I ask you the same thing that you did on July 23: whoever can vote should vote for Illa as president of the Generalitat,”
For his part, the candidate, who promised that he will approve a new neighborhood law, if he governs, endowed with 800 million euros in four years from which 100 neighborhoods throughout Catalonia will benefit, influenced the contest with Junts. The candidate warned that “nothing is done,” and although there are “good feelings,” he encouraged mobilization “without falling into provocations.” Faced with these provocations, “from both sides,” Illa said he was “in the middle, in the solutions, in opening a new stage in Catalonia with the help of the Government of Spain and Pedro Sánchez.”
Like the president, the PSC leader warned that 12-M will be chosen between “two paths: that of blockade, confrontation, disagreement, more of the same and what we have had for ten years, or a new stage of collaboration, of agreement, of uniting and serving.” For Illa, the first path “leads to paralysis,” he warned.
Sánchez did not mention the Government’s clash with the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, who responded to statements by Minister Óscar Puente recalling the “accusations of corruption” that weigh against the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez. But he did refer to the concord laws that PP and Vox have promoted in various autonomous communities in which they govern and have been disapproved by the UN. “To those who know what memory means, I say: the Government is going to defend memory and dignity by all means of the rule of law,” the president guaranteed.
