From being willing to go to the demonstration organized by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) for the Diada, to leaving it now in the air. Dolors Feliu, president of the association, has been hardening her position with the pro-independence parties and ERC is beginning to doubt that the mobilization is inclusive enough. The result? That the Republicans have avoided this noon specifying whether they will participate in the mobilization that this year will come together in the Plaza Espanya in Barcelona.
“I cannot specify the demonstration you are talking about”, stressed the spokesperson for Esquerra Raquel Sans, “but the Onze de Setembre is very transversal, it takes place in many squares and streets and ERC will be there. We would love for all the demonstrations were transversal and inclusive”, the Republican responded when asked at a press conference if her party would attend the ANC demonstration. The ERC leadership and its most representative cadres and faces were absent -with the exception of Carme Forcadell- in last year’s demonstration for, in their opinion, “exclusionary” and for going, in their opinion, against the Republicans.
The contrast with the words of the deputy general secretary of ERC, Marta Vilalta, on August 10 in an interview with Efe is evident. On that occasion, when only the manifesto calling for the mobilization was known, Vilalta affirmed that this time the Republicans would come, since the 2023 one did not have a “hostile” look towards his party and certain pro-independence sectors and that it was proposed “from a more open, transversal and plural perspective”. And this despite the fact that the text denounces “the immobility of the pro-independence parties” and maintains that the dialogue table promoted by ERC to agree with the PSOE and Unidas Podemos on the repeal of sedition and pardons “has not had any utility”.
The president of the ANC may have something to do with the doubtful position of ERC. On August 17, when the Congress was established, Feliu accused ERC and Junts of “whitewashing the State before Europe” with their “reduction” pacts, referring to the agreements reached by both with the PSOE to promote Catalan in the European Union and the Lower House or an amnesty law.
Likewise, they contrast the points of view that Feliu gave about Pere Aragonès and Carles Puigdemont. “If his commitment is to independence, which he has verbalized, it is good that he is [in the demonstration],” said the Republican in a recent interview with the Agència Catalana de Notícies (ACN), the leader of the Assemble. Feliu also called on the president to call elections, since “the majorities that support the Government are very few” and its continuity is difficult. Regarding Puigdemont, on the other hand, he showed “some hope, because he is our symbol in exile.”
