ERC, PSC and Alternativa per Ripoll-CUP announced last night that they have reached an agreement without Junts to prevent the far-right pro-independence party Aliança Catalana led by Sílvia Orriols from ruling in Ripoll (Girona). To make this pact effective, the collaboration of Junts is necessary, a party that is divided on the issue.
While the party leadership was firm yesterday in favor of a sanitary cordon to prevent the ultras from governing in Ripoll, even disavowing its own president, Laura Borràs, who said over the weekend that she was not in favor of this cordon, the The party’s candidate for mayor, Manoli Vega, acknowledged to La Vanguardia that all options remain open, including giving Orriols the leadership rod.
With last night’s announcement, the ERC, PSC and the CUP put pressure on Junts to lean towards the cordon sanitaire. “Given that the population of Ripoll expressed its desire for change on 28-M and given the inability to obtain support to govern from the other formations, an agreement has been reached for a progressive government in Ripoll, which will allow governability for the next four years”, the leftist formations maintain in a statement, which gave a press conference in the municipality on Tuesday in which the three signatory formations have assured that Junts was aware of the negotiations and that it had expressed its will not to form part of a future government and give them support both at the investiture and throughout the legislature.
“It seems that this is becoming a matter of the country, when it is a question of Ripoll. What we cannot allow is that a pact be imposed on us from Barcelona, ??because we are the ones who will have to explain it to our citizens. The town is divided ”, the Junts candidate in Ripoll explained to La Vanguardia yesterday.
Vega, after recalling that Aliança Catalana obtained 30.7% of the votes (almost double that of Junts) and was the first force in the 13 municipal tables, does not hide that she is in favor of letting Orriols govern in a minority and be seen forced to negotiate with the rest of the formations, without ruling out presenting, when the time comes, a motion of censure. “When you talk to the townspeople, it’s what they want. And it tells you above all people who have not voted for it ”, argues the JxCat candidate.
However, Vega admits that for now he is only negotiating with the leftist parties, although without success. Orriols, despite his victimist discourse, has not shown any interest in speaking with the rest of the parties to gain support. “We will be the ones who explain to our citizens what we have decided, and the reason cannot be just to veto the extreme right.”
Junts has dropped from eight to three councilors, and everything indicates that their voters are the ones who have bought Orriols’ speech the most, which has risen from one to six. He promises to “save Ripoll” from Islamization, with a speech modeled on that of so many ultra formations in other European countries.
Aliança Catalana, a split from the Front Nacional de Catalunya, is a party born after the shock caused by the 17-A attacks in Ripoll, where the young terrorists had grown up. While the rest of the parties chose to turn the page on what happened, Orriols has not stopped delving into the wound.
In the last legislature, the rest of the formations applied a strong sanitary cordon to Orriols (the only councilor for the ultra party). “Clearly (the cordon) has failed,” says the Junts candidate. In these elections we have presented six parties, with six lists and six programs. And they were all legal. If they have to put sanitary cords, they should be put before ”.
The ERC candidate for mayor of Ripoll, Chantal Pérez, in statements this Tuesday in RAC1 has shown herself confident that Junts will agree to join the agreement that, in fact, would make her mayor and has made self-criticism about the electoral results in Ripoll.
Pérez has branded Sílvia Orriols as an ultra-Catholic and has judged her to be of the extreme right because in the municipal plenary sessions of the last four years she has dedicated herself to “pointing out and stigmatizing” a “specific” group – the Islamic one – as “guilty of all the ills of our society. Asked about the possibility of letting the ultra-right govern to present a motion of no confidence later to expose it, Pérez acknowledged that “assuming that Orriols is going to govern badly is assuming too much” and has admitted that “they are not entitled to say so “.
