Esquerra does not even want to hear about alliances to form a government, agreements to invest one or the other and any external factor. The party ignores the siren songs of Salvador Illa or Carles Puigdemont to help invest one of the two because it prefers to focus on an internal process of renewal that will surely culminate with an extraordinary congress, but which will be wait. Pere Aragonès resigned yesterday from his position as deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia and did nothing more than anticipate this debate that will most likely also affect the two top leaders of ERC: Oriol Junqueras and Marta Rovira.
For Aragonès, it is up to the PSC and Junts to “manage the new stage” as winners of the elections. This argument, together with that introspective desire, serves the president of the Generalitat to try to shake off all pressure and also prevent the Republicans from being blamed in the event of a repeat election.
“Now it will be time to strengthen the project, and decisions will be made collectively by the party. I am convinced that we will look forward and that the project will continue,” said Aragonés at the press conference yesterday at noon in which he announced his resignation from the seat. He did so, however, dodging the question of whether ERC will call a congress to reorganize. And he expressed himself alone from the lectern, with the attentive gaze from the end of the room at the dome of the formation, among them, Junqueras.
That of the president of the Generalitat is, for now, the only significant movement in the party after it collapsed in the Catalan elections on Sunday. In the coming days, ERC is expected to announce the procedure to renew itself. Despite everything, the European elections on June 9 will possibly mean that the process will not accelerate yet.
The Republicans smelled the defeat of May 12. The tracking of its own surveys had even indicated the possibility of keeping 19 seats in recent days. Aragonès did not want to meet them until shortly before the Parliament elections. Finally, Esquerra obtained 20 deputies. Perhaps because it was already seen coming, and even though the procession was inside, the faces of the members of the management yesterday hid their sadness at the failure well.
“Out of responsibility with the country and with the party I represent, I have informed the national permanent of Esquerra Republicana that I will not take the position of deputy and that I will abandon the political front line,” said the Republican.
The head of the Government stressed that a new stage is beginning and that he will focus his efforts on facilitating a transition from the acting Government. But also in his party from his position as national coordinator to “close an electoral cycle of bad results and contribute to opening a new cycle of growth.” Once the renewal has taken place, Aragonès’ intention is to leave his party position.
The elections “are a change of face” for his party and for Catalonia, said the national coordinator of ERC. It was here that he left the formation of a new government in the hands of Illa and Puigdemont. The Republicans maintain that there will be sociovergence, although both the leader of the socialists and the post-convergent have completely ruled it out.
For ERC to invest in Illa is impossible. At least that’s how Aragonès highlights it. He once again made it clear that Esquerra will not be part of a new government. But he expressed himself in a confusing way later: he first stressed that his formation “will be an element of unlocking” from the opposition; However, minutes later he stressed that ERC is not “to facilitate an investiture of the PSC” and that it will not participate “in operations that require the agreement of Junts and the PSC.”
The ERC leader was seen at some point during his appearance a little resentful of these two formations, especially when he admitted that “the opposition to the Government represented by the PSC and Junts has won” and then recalled that the blockade by of both to his Executive “has prevented the transformations from going ahead” that the Republicans had proposed since the beginning of their mandate, in May 2021. “This is why it is now up to them to manage the new scenario,” he argued.
There are European elections on June 9. Esquerra faces them without much time to recover and with few changes in strategy in sight. The campaign begins on May 24 and the mood is not the best to face it.
