The newly confirmed leader of the Popular Party of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, is moving away from any sign of approaching the complex Catalan political puzzle in which independence, whether he likes it or not, continues to have consistent strength. To the point of denying that the PSC is a party aligned with the Constitution – in its terms, a constitutionalist party – because of its “butterflies with the pro-independence parties”.
Fernández, who yesterday toured two Spanish broadcasters, stated that Salvador Illa cannot be included in the “constitutional bloc” because of his alliances with independence, which he placed “outside the margins of the Constitution ” and of the spirit of the transition, and warned that if the socialists want to reach a post-electoral pact with the popular ones after the May 12 parliamentary elections, they will have to “break any alliance with the separatists”, both in Congress of Deputies as in deputations and town councils.
None of the multiple polls that have been published in recent weeks, including that of Ipsos for La Vanguardia, offer a result that would make a PSC government – ??which is the winner in all polls – possible without the contest of one of the two main pro-independence forces, Junts or ERC. The expectations of the PP, despite the fact that they are very good for the vote on May 12, do not achieve a result that makes it a sufficient partner to form the future government of the Generalitat without counting on the pro-independence parties.
“We will never play this game of the PSC in this kind of butterflying with separatism. Don’t even talk about it. Turning the page happens so that separatism goes to the opposition here [in Parliament], pacts are broken in Congress and also in the deputations and in the town councils”, assured Fernández in statements to Cope.
He was also convinced that, if the candidate of the PSC for the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has the possibility to choose after the next regional elections, “he will prefer a thousand times to agree with the separatists than with the PP”. Therefore, as he explained, the PP is the option to put an end to the process, a fact he commits to if he has “the key to Catalan politics”.
Fernández accused the PSC of having an “obsession” with power and nothing else, and “if for this it has to be crypto-nationalist, Spanishist or mid-pensionist, that’s what it will be”.
The president of the PPC identified “classical Catalanism” – which at the time represented the defunct Convergència i Unió (CiU) – as one of the first “victims” of the sovereignist process and showed respect for the Ciutadans leaders, although he regretted that they had made another “mistake” after not wanting to run in the 12-M elections with the popular ones.
Interviewed later on Antena 3, the candidate of the popular people in Catalonia also referred to the words of the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who in an interview with the newspaper El Mundo that was published yesterday opened the door to talks with Junts if this party “is reconciled with the law, the Constitution and the Statute”. Fernández assured that he does not see “any inconsistency” between what he pointed out for Feijóo and what he defends, since the conditions listed “are not there today” nor does he think they could be there in the future.
After the general elections of June 23 last year, Fernández’s voice became one of the discordant notes with the strategy set by Feijóo, after the Catalan leader rejected any approach to independence.
