It is known that the words spoken by candidates in the campaign are swept away by the first gale that breaks out, results in hand, the day after an election. In the case of these Catalans, the forecast of serious difficulties in building majorities from the 13th – difficulties that, taken to the extreme, could force a repeat election – is causing as much or more talk these days about possible pacts to govern Catalonia in the coming years that provide imaginative solutions to resolve the serious problems that the country faces and that are at the base of its own political instability. The with whom comes before the what, the why and the how. Therefore, the slightest proposal that goes off script, like the one launched yesterday by the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, when expressing his will to “lead a transversal government”, is capable of leading all his rivals to draw red lines. apparently very marked. In short, at this point the one without you usually sells more than the one with you.
Illa, whom the polls continue to show as the favorite to win the elections, took a new step yesterday, in an interview on the Ser channel and before participating in a rally with Pedro Sánchez in Sant Boi, in the projection of his image as a politician. dialogue and who offers himself as a gravedigger for the stridencies of Catalan politics of the last decade. He is running as leader of “a transversal government that is supported by a very transversal majority.” His government formula only excludes Vox and Aliança Catalana on paper. To no one else, not even Junts. “We, with Junts, have collaborated in other institutions and we are going to see what option they take,” said the PSC presidential candidate, not without warning that this option would lose almost all its meaning if Puigdemont “maintains the independence of Catalonia as his first priority.” ”.
The Junts candidate lacked time to shake off the pressure and redirect it towards ERC. After ensuring that his votes will certainly not contribute to investing the PSC leader as president, Carles Puigdemont passed the ball to the head of Esquerra’s list, Pere Aragonès. “I would like to know with the same forcefulness and clarity that no ERC vote will serve to make Salvador Illa president,” said the independence leader.
Puigdemont knows that his chances of regaining the presidency of Catalonia involve rebuilding old bridges with Esquerra, which in their day suffered from all kinds of pathologies, and the need for the Republicans not to fall into the temptation of reissuing another old formula. , that of the left tripartite with socialists and commoners.
For now, Aragonès is trying to isolate himself from the noise of the post-electoral pacts so as not to encourage his potential voters to vote useful for Junts or the PSC. He prefers to focus the debate on his management at the head of the presidency of the Generalitat, although there are black holes in areas such as education, security or the response to the drought situation. Yesterday, the ERC candidate for re-election referred to pacts, but of a different type, a “national pact” – again, as in the case of Illa, transversality – to streamline and reduce bureaucracy in the Catalan Administration.
The commoners, for their part, have seen in Salvador Illa’s proposal a float to hold onto to prevent a hypothetical rise in the socialist tide from sweeping them away. The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, took out the book of anti-convergent spells to warn left-wing voters that voting for the PSC could open the way for Puigdemont to regain the presidency of the Generalitat. In other words, according to Urtasun, it is “opening the door to agree with those who do not want fair taxation and do not want to face the housing problem, the heirs of cuts and pujolismo.”
Salvador Illa’s words did not go unnoticed by the Popular Party, which in its commitment to the “mainstreaming” of the socialist candidate wanted to see the threat of a sociovergence 4.0 very different – ??due to the presence of the independence factor – from the one that never materialized in the times of pujolismo and in the years that preceded the process. In Sant Joan Despí, where one of the PP barons allied with Vox, the president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, moved to help the campaign, the conservative party candidate accused the socialists of having “resurrected the process.” “Illa has revealed his intention to reach an agreement with Puigdemont to govern Catalonia,” said Alejandro Fernández. “They won’t find us there, they won’t count on us for an operation of these characteristics,” he added. It is worth remembering that a week ago, in the first candidate debate of these elections, organized by La Vanguardia and RAC1, Illa ruled out doing a Collboni, that is, winning the presidency thanks to the votes of the PP.
Nor is Ciudadanos, if it obtains representation, willing to enter Illa’s game. Candidate Carles Carrizosa said that the “lack of scruples” of the socialists could lead them to make Puigdemont president to keep Pedro Sánchez in Moncloa. And, although Illa does not count on them at all, Vox’s votes will in no case strengthen a government chaired by the PSC. This was confirmed by Ignacio Garriga, who assured that he would not even facilitate a non-independence government led by the socialists. Before, an electoral repetition.
