Pere Aragonès and Carles Puigdemont speak more about Gabriel Rufián than about the unity of the independence parties. The exception becomes the rule and communication between the two leaders flows on account of the reiteration of blows by the ERC spokesman in Congress with Puigdemont always on his target. In twelve days, bitter complaints have been sent in writing from Waterloo and messages of solidarity from Barcelona. The partisan struggle between ERC and Junts had never generated so much private communication at such a high level…
Rufián’s Puigdemontist obsession has ceased to fit in with ERC’s strategy of avoiding direct clashes with Junts in search of political authority. The watchword was always to demonstrate another spirit, in accordance with the profile of the president: a serious party, managing without fanfare… Neither more nor less than the Aragonese version of Oriol Junqueras’s suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. Nothing squeaks in public at ERC… except Rufián. And in three weeks he has squeaked a lot. “Not like that, it’s not our style,” they certify at the Palau. So the laissez faire of ERC headquarters has come to an end. Disavowal of the president, reprimand of Marta Rovira with retweet of Junqueras.
On May 26, from the platform of Congress, Rufián reproached Jaume Asens for his trips to Waterloo. A week before Aragonès had met with Puigdemont in Brussels, although until the last moment it was considered that the appointment would be in… Waterloo. “Stop going to Waterloo so much”… Last Saturday in Argelers Alba Vergés and Raquel Sans took “delighted” photos of meeting up with the former president at the Junts congress. Parallel to the smiles, Rovira demanded loyalty from Junts, three days later Puigdemont was the “moron”.
The ERC spokesman has exhausted his credibility, his headlines cover up advances such as the PSC, ERC, Junts and Commons pact on the use of Catalan in education and certifies that the course has been fateful for the Republicans in Madrid. The stalled dialogue table, an audiovisual law outside the PSOE-ERC commitments, the Catalangate, a low budget execution despite the supposed republican safeguards… And everything feeds Junts.
Rufián’s future occupies ERC. His candidacy for mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet is expected to be announced in a few weeks and his presence in the town will increase. Although he insists that he will not leave Congress and until he has the commitment to repeat as head of the list in Madrid, between now and the general elections nothing is written. The agreements mutate, also within ERC.
But the elephant in the ERC room, what is worrying, is the management of the relationship with the PSOE and the disdain with which they consider Pedro Sánchez treats them despite Rufián’s fuss against the Socialists. This week in the Senate, he reproached his Republican partners for paying for the “territorial grievance” speech, alleging that his government “has complied.” “Ask your colleagues who were previously in jail and are now out.” The pardons for the leaders of the procés – the “compliance” – were agreed a year ago and, since then, the PSOE has taken the ERC for granted.
From Moncloa, ERC is reproached for abandoning the “progress majority” in the “important” votes. Two this week. For the Republicans, the key votes were the investiture and the two budgets approved by Sánchez this legislature. There is no agreement on the legislative agenda. And there are no more photos worth Aragonès, although the calendar is still the one imposed by Sánchez. There will be no possible relaxation until the magnitude of the Andalusian tragedy is known and Moncloa adjusts its strategy with the skyrocketing inflation, the crisis with Algeria, the tensions with United We Can… Nor is Aragonès worth the continuous decline of the term “dialogue” by part of the Prime Minister, despite the fact that ERC cannot and does not want to get up from a table that Junts is eating away.
For the post-convergent, the speeches and gestures – planting the minister Raquel Sánchez – are enough to pay for the confrontation. The execution figures for infrastructure investment in Catalonia and the Government’s snubs to ERC are a gift. That Rufián continues to be surrounded by microphones, too…
And another war begins. Thirty years of waiting and the transfer from the State to the Generalitat of the works of the Fourth Belt arrives. ERC opposes the project for being “sociovergent”… The deficit in infrastructure investment was the origin of the procés.
