The ghost of Marcial Dorado turned into an end-of-campaign scam is repelled by the PP with the shadow of the referendum in Catalonia. The impact of last-minute scares on the three million undecideds is a sociological mystery. One thing is the electorate’s skin reaction to the company of criminals on a yacht, and another to question the unity of Spain by questioning the patriots, also the socialists.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo denies his meetings with Dorado and Santiago Abascal while Pedro Sánchez boasts of a coalition with Yolanda Díaz, ignoring that Sumar falls short and should “look for votes under the rocks” to continue in Moncloa. The alternative goes through Euskadi and, above all, through Catalonia, where independentism, divided, fights against electoral regression.
The loyalty of the pro-independence vote is below minimum – less than 50% according to some internal polls – and the maneuvers against militant abstention and disaffection have been repeated. The most successful, Oriol Junqueras and Arnaldo Otegi sharing the stage twice. The leader of Bildu prescribes “a lot of perseverance and a lot of strategic patience” while Junqueras proposes a simultaneous Catalan and Basque referendum. It has been the only ERC concession to magical independence.
The electoral narrative of the Republicans has moved from the anti-fascist struggle to spaces where they can be more competitive than the PSC. Gabriel Rufián personally claims the negotiation of pardons after a year of hiding the management from the party and the Palau de la Generalitat. Sanchez’s subsequent denial follows the script. They agreed to the margins of the dialectical clash that surrounded the release and led to the repeal of sedition. With the pro-independence prisoners on the street and the political effects of the disqualification in effect for Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa, ERC’s proud negotiator raises new barriers between former cellmates.
If they also put the transfer of Rodalies and the financing reform on the table as conditions for voting for Sánchez – with the dialogue table – the pro-independence common front becomes a chimera. The ERC’s vote leaks towards the PSC are covered up with “acceptable” and reasonable conditions for a hypothetical investiture of Sánchez that appeal to Catalan socialism.
But in Junts, talking about the principle of ordinality is going back to 2010 with Artur Mas. The presence of the ex-president in Míriam Nogueras’ campaign is not a concession to the pragmatic sector – absent from the media program – but an attempt to keep open doors that Carles Puigdemont has already closed: Junts will not invest in either Feijóo or Sánchez. Both deny the referendum, so the declared post-convergence objective is for internal consumption: to overcome ERC.
If the 23-J does not leave a PP-Vox majority and grants a key to the post-convergents, ERC would be disarmed and the uncertainty among the souls of the party would turn into agony. Turull plans to take a plane to Brazil on Tuesday. For nine days, he will be the guest of the ProCerrado Foundation, which works on the reintegration of young people into the labor market. The commitment comes from February and then the problem at Junts was the future of Laura Borràs, not the governability of Spain.
