The abstention in Sunday’s elections made a hole in the pro-independence candidacies. Especially in Esquerra, which 300,000 people stopped voting for. Now, with the general elections of July 23 in sight, the Government wants all these votes to be recovered and the possibility that the PP and Vox will be installed in Moncloa has caused Pere Aragonès to make a call from Palace of the Generalitat to form a “democratic front” or a “common front” sovereignist before a state executive of “the right and the extreme right” which in his opinion is certain to happen.
The president wants to avoid abstention, but also an escape of the “useful vote” that the PSC is responsible for claiming in the face of the “reactionary wave” that, according to pro-independence and socialists, is imminent if it is not put to the polls .
During his speech, Aragonès took it for granted that the next government will be PP-Vox. That Ciutadans abandons the electoral race fuels the idea. He did not give room for Pedro Sánchez to repeat as president of the Spanish Cabinet. A reasoning that can be explained by the need that the president sees to concentrate votes on pro-independence options, which are the ones that, in his opinion, will be more effective when it comes to “defending Catalonia”.
“The time is dire and Catalonia must be defended. The government of the right and extreme right represents a frontal attack on the basic pillars and consensus of our country”, Aragonès went on to say. And it is that for the head of the Government Catalan schools, public health, civil rights, equality, well-being and the economy are in danger and, in particular, “Catalan institutions and the right to freely choose how in town”.
In order to understand each other, the republican considers essential a “common front” with which, among others, the Government and Parliament are strengthened. So he opted to replace the president of the Catalan Chamber, Laura Borrà s, convicted of fraud and document falsification, with another pro-independence presidency. But he also called for “finding firm and new governance stability mechanisms”. In other words, a pact to stabilize the Government he leads.
The joint candidacy is an idea that was again proposed by Junts monday, through its general secretary, Jordi Turull. “It is up to the parties to make proposals”, Aragonès limited himself to saying.
This opened the door for the post-convergents to attribute the proposal to themselves and affirm, as Turull expressed from Waterloo, that “the president raises things” that have been asked of him “for a long time and that until now he has not understood”. “If the rectification proposal to move towards independence is sincere, let’s meet tomorrow,” he stressed.
Together he stormed out to make it clear that the idea was his. Carles Puigdemont also had his say: “This is exactly what we have been asking for years: let’s meet, meet again and propose a shared strategy to the country as a whole. But for independence, of course. For other things, they don’t need to waste time.” Borrà s published a video in which he claims that after the appearance he contacted Aragonès to make this “common front for independence” effective. The pre-campaign starts in full swing.
The CUP considered it “difficult” to form this front and accused Turull and Aragonès of making proposals “at the stroke of a ballot”. In addition, the anti-capitalists are waiting to decide whether they will run in the July 23 elections.
However, ERC rules out that “democratic front” means a joint list. Marta Vilalta did it on TV3 a couple of hours before the president of the Generalitat spoke. He accused Junts of making a proposal that is not “serious and formal”, and that seeks to “continue the dynamic of attrition” at ERC. Sources from the party confirmed that, despite the president’s vagueness, the formation does not think of a unitary list, rather of a “general framework of agreement”. Aragonès, in fact, in an intervention at the Cercle d’Economia, already in the evening, clarified that the joint list of two parties is not in his thinking: “Democratic front is not to make a list of two parties, but a fundamental alliance “.
