In some hidden place in Catalonia there must be a drawer full of stars. Pau Ricomà , mayor for ERC in Tarragona, assures that the right leaves it there as long as there are real estate deals in the middle; the Junts candidate, Jordi Sendra, assures that the republican will keep it the day after the elections. The CUP have accused the two parties several times of having forgotten it in that drawer. But the one who certainly does not retain stars is the candidate of the PSC in Tarragona, Rubén Viñuales.
Pere Aragonès took it upon himself this Thursday in a campaign event to remember that the now socialist was in the ranks of Citizens. “[The socialists] have signed the Spanish nationalism that came to break social cohesion”. “They have the ultra-right in the party with their candidate”, underlined the deputy general secretary of Esquerra, Marta Vilalta.
For the head of the Government there is a peculiarity in the Tarragona PSC: “Here they have innovated and put some who shout against Catalan, against freedoms and in favor of repression, and who applaud the decoration of the police” who intervened 1- O. The orange past of Viñuales, in the center of the target.
The truth is that Junts may hold the key to governability and may be as inclined to support the Republicans as to give command to the socialist candidate. That’s why Aragonès wanted to explain the contradiction that could mean for JxCat to cede, if this is the case, the mayorship to someone “who has applauded the imprisonment” of post-convergence leaders such as Jordi Turull, Quim Forn, Jordi Sà nchez or Josep Rull .
Ricomà assures that the post-convergents have already sealed a pact with the PSC to return the mayorship to the socialists. He did not obtain the denial of the mayor of Junts immediately, live, in one of the debates. But yes, on Wednesday in the central act of his candidacy in Tarragona. He denied the premise and also assured that he will only agree with those who “defend the country and the language” and do not “keep the star in a drawer”. If the latter was for ERC, Carme Forcadell took it upon herself yesterday to answer: “We are pro-independence. We carry it in the DNA”.
Faced with the doubt generated, according to the republicans, by Junts’ position, the president of the Generalitat called for the vote to be concentrated in ERC, so that “no pro-independence vote can go indirectly to a PSC mayor today and before Ciutadans”. Aragonès wants the change to be “consolidated”.
Along with Lleida, Tarragona is the other provincial capital of Catalonia where Esquerra leads the municipal government after successive socialist governments. “It is necessary to make it very clear to those who thought they would rule forever that this is not a parenthesis”, that the result of the 2019 elections “is not a stroke of bad luck”, the president cried in Tarragona.
