“So that?”. The answer given after the 2022 Junts congress when the possibility of leaving the Government was asked – included in the conclave documents –, depending on who was being scrutinized, is the same one given today when asked about a possible return to the Catalan Executive –which is not on the table–. October 7 marks one year since the breakup of the coalition with Esquerra after the abrupt departure of JxCat, decided in a consultation with the militancy.
Now, in the midst of crossing the desert, the party led by Jordi Turull shows with satisfaction that it occupies a central place on the political board and the first results of its negotiation with the PSOE. Thus, JxCat points out that it has the key to governability in Spain and also takes pride in the fact that in the Parliament’s general policy debate – where, together with the PSC, the post-convergents have put the Republicans in a bind on more than one occasion due to management on issues such as drought, oppositions, etc. – his group was the one that managed to approve the most resolutions and the party now establishes itself as “an alternative” to the monochrome Executive of ERC while claiming that its postulates are also at the center of the political debate and it is the Republicans who ask to negotiate together in Madrid – a recurring demand of Junts since 2021.
To get here, the formation has not exactly gone through a bed of roses and has experienced several turbulent moments that in the last two months seem to have been left behind. The internal wounds left by the departure of the Generalitat and, at the beginning of this summer, the management of the municipal post-electoral pacts, which caused discomfort in some sectors due to the loss of institutional power, have already healed with the sweet moment they are experiencing training, although within they are aware that the tables can change again. “We have consolidated the party and we have passed the test,” say voices consulted after this electoral cycle. “We have passed a stress test,” these voices add.
In Barcelona, ??in the municipal elections, Junts was the first force led by Xavier Trias, although it does not govern and the most important city council controlled by the party is that of Sant Cugat del Vallès. In the deputations, after a change of direction in the negotiating strategy, the party was left out of the supramunicipal government in Lleida, Tarragona and Barcelona. It is only in Girona. That was one of the reasons for the anger of middle management and a part of the more pragmatic wing, which today no longer raises its voice.
The management of Laura Borràs’ internal portfolio also caused discontent within Carles Puigdemont’s party. But with the former president, who no longer has any organic position, as the leading voice and bearer of the negotiating baton for the Spanish legislature, in a formation accustomed to internal noise, there is hardly any polyphony and the criticism of the first days after the general elections in the executive due to the lack of power of that body they have been extinguished. The leadership that Puigdemont exercises together with Turull and a small core of leaders is for now unquestionable. There are those who consider that they have finally achieved an orderly and cohesive party.
What could have been an annus horribilis for JxCat has taken a different turn in recent weeks. Especially since there is water in the pool. During the campaign the party got tired of repeating that if governability depended on them nothing would be done as it had been done until now and today they emphasize that Catalan can be spoken in Congress and work is being done to make it an official language in the European Union – The efforts of Minister José Manuel Albares are even appreciated! – the independence movement is outside the Europol terrorist groups and the amnesty is no longer a chimera. They contrast all of this with the results of the Republicans in the previous legislature.
“Prudence and discretion” is JxCat’s maxim in this negotiation. They point out that it is giving them results. More than appearing every week at a press conference. Now there are no mistakes that those who do speak can make. At first there were doubts that the imposed strategy would work and its viability, but today no one answers it and Puigdemont transmits the message.
In relation to the leadership, if there is no amnesty, the person who has the most numbers to be the candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat is the former councilor Josep Rull, current president of the national council, given his judicial situation, now free of penalties.
Another of the party’s names, Laura Borràs, has fallen from any shortlist due to her judicial situation, convicted in the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia for favoring a friend when she was director of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC), yes Well, he is waiting for the Supreme Court to review his appeal. The leader, despite the internal criticism she has garnered in the last year as a result of different episodes, not only because of her conviction, remains president of the party… but in a secondary role after having left the presidency of the Parliament last year. month of June, with the appointment of Anna Erra as the new president of the institution. In Junts there were those who advocated taking advantage of her judicial situation to force her to leave the presidency, but in the end the idea of ??keeping the party cohesive with an eye on the municipal elections prevailed. Pedro Sánchez’s call for the general elections unexpectedly caught everyone off guard and disrupted any movement of chairs.
Another unknown is what role former Minister Jaume Giró will play, one of the names that most opposed the departure of the Government a year ago. He intended to go to the primaries to be the congressional candidate, but after a message of support from Puigdemont to Míriam Nogueras he withdrew from the race. The former general secretary Jordi Sànchez, for his part, left militancy for his new position in the Greuges Sindicatura.
