Tonight the electoral campaign ends. A rare campaign like few others. Dispersed in many ways. Firstly, because one day before it began, political activity was suspended by a thread with the surprising – perhaps the appropriate word is impulsive – letter from the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in which he announced that perhaps, perhaps he would send it everything to hell.
Those five days kept the Catalan campaign embargoed. It was time wasted, but at the same time they constitute one of the symptoms of the change in direction that is sensed. We discovered that Sánchez’s resistance manual has a limit and that message is valid for his party, for his adversaries and allies, including the Catalan independentists.
Everyone ran to check if a possible resignation of the president could suspend the Amnesty law, which will finally be approved at the end of this month. On the 14th it will be voted on in the Senate and on the 16th it will enter Congress, where the veto of the Upper House will be lifted and it will come into force in June. Then it will be in the hands of the judges, who must apply it.
The perspective of the Amnesty law indicates another coordinate of the change of course. These elections have still been held within the framework of the political anomaly derived from the process, with a presidential candidate, Carles Puigdemont, who for the third time is campaigning without setting foot in Catalonia, and the leaders of other parties, especially ERC, disqualified from appearing on the electoral lists.
However, if the polls are correct, Carles Puigdemont’s campaign on the other side of the border has gone well, to the point that today Junts will not hold the central event in Barcelona and will move it to Elna, in the south of France. The former president has run a very personal campaign. He has intervened in all the Argelers events, closing the speeches of the rest of the candidates. Expectations for him have been gradually growing in the polls, without reaching Salvador Illa, but getting closer to him, and leaving ERC behind.
If Junts imposes a significant distance with the Republicans and resolves the technical tie that has been one of the keys to the acceleration of the process, many things can change in Catalan politics. At Junts they are convinced that they can achieve it even though the campaign caught them unprepared.
In any case, another of the evidence left by the campaign that ends today is the change in the independence movement’s discourse. Neither Junts, nor ERC nor the CUP renounce their ultimate political objectives, but it has become clear that the path of unilateralism is today stuffed in the last closet of the furniture storage room.
Listening to the candidates, one gets the impression that now the independence struggle is a kind of peix al cove 2.0. The winner is the one who accredits the best returns in that fight to the tenant of the Moncloa, whoever it is.
Nothing predicts a calm time for the legislature in the Congress of Deputies, although the presumed victory of Salvador Illa, who has run a calm campaign, without breaking any bridges with almost anyone, will verify that the policy promoted by the Socialist Party in Catalonia has given its fruits and the reward will be a broader victory than the one already obtained in 2021, but which, however, may be insufficient.
And it remains to be seen what happens with the PP. Feijóo does not seem to appreciate any of these changes, those confirmed and those that may arise from the new political scenario, perhaps because he is focused on fighting his biggest competitor in Catalonia, Vox, which is resisting.
For the Popular Party, reaching and surpassing Abascal’s party in Catalonia is key to properly facing the next electoral challenge, the European elections that will be held – yes, it seems impossible – in just four weeks.
