The former president Artur Mas considers that the PDECat should not stand for the general elections on July 23: “It does not make much sense to divide that space”, he assured in an interview on Ràdio Estel in reference to the different parties that emerged after the disappearance Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC).
Although he says he does not blame the PDECat, resulting, like Junts and other minor formations, from the emergence of the CDC, Mas maintains that the experience of going separately from Junts, the majority party in the post-convergent orbit, “has not gone well” in the municipal elections in May, so he understands that the same situation should not be repeated in the general elections.
The former president acknowledges that he has not been able to speak with the PDECat candidate, Roger Montañola, but, on the other hand, has assured that he has done so with the party’s president, David Bonvehí, to whom he has conveyed his conviction that the post-convergent world should come together in a single candidacy, as happened in Barcelona with Xavier Trias, who, in his opinion, carried out “a great sum operation within an ideological space that should never have been divided internally”.
“The recipe is very obvious and when it is, you cannot be denying it over and over again. From there, the effort would have to lead to a joint agreement and do the same as in Barcelona and in other municipalities”, concludes Mas , for whom electoral alliances between PDECat and Junts were reached, the result was a “success”, as Trias demonstrated by winning the municipal elections “clearly”.
Mas’s proposal has not gone down well in the PDECat-Espai CiU. On Twitter, its communication managers have posted a scene from the comedy Love Actually, with Hugh Grant in the role of British Prime Minister and Billy Bob Thornton in that of the President of the United States, to reject the approach of not going to the polls on 23-J. Above the actors, the names of Artur Mas and Roger Montañola appear and the actual dialogue is altered with subtitles: “I have the feeling that my relationship with the president has changed,” says Grant-Montañola, who reproaches Thornton-Mas for his ” critics” and “ignore what is important for Catalonia”.
“We may be a small party, but we are a good party. The party of the patronage law, of avoiding multiple recidivism, of lowering taxes, of obtaining investments for Catalonia, of not making a show. Those who are not ashamed, those who must not vote with a nose clip. We are convinced that President Mas knows this perfectly. And that is why we are here with all the strength, to speak clearly from now on and that his voters vote for us”, concludes his fictional Montañola-Grant speech to applause from the White House press room.
