Whenever he is asked about the work of the Government of Pere Aragonès, the leader of the opposition in Catalonia, Salvador Illa, responds by appealing to self-demand and slips that the Catalan Executive could do more. In passing, he takes the opportunity to point out that he is focused on building an alternative to this Government “that does not work” and that he is in no rush for elections in Catalonia. This alternative requires work and time, which the PSC has dedicated to designing proposals and touring all of Catalonia.
The Catalan socialists do not want the same thing to happen to Ciudadanos, when it went from being the first group in the Catalan Chamber to the seventh, and many blame it on their inaction when building an alternative to independence for the investiture in 2017 That is why Illa, after winning the 2021 elections but not being able to govern, set out to make a strong mark on the Executive of ERC and Junts with an alternative government, which would supervise the action of the first. After two years of activity and a “bestial” pace as described by their own ranks, Illa’s cabinet takes stock of 91 proposals and visits throughout Catalonia.
Illa’s alternative government intends to demonstrate that it has the capacity to function as a real government, approving agreements on peremptory issues in Catalonia every week. The PSC designed a government plan until 2023 with initiatives in all areas, on which it has approved proposals in 74% of cases. These are issues such as the financing of Catalonia, the digital agenda, education, forestry management, care for the elderly, the regional police, mobility infrastructures, occupation or drought.
The PSC has been approving documents, measures and proposals around these and many other issues that have sometimes been transferred to the Government with the aim of agreeing. In this way, Illa has given his party a “progressive, open-minded and responsible” character, he assures, in order to make him “the political benchmark for change in Catalonia.”
In addition, the leader of the socialists in Catalonia has lived more outside than inside the Parliament. Convinced that the alternative is built outside, stepping on the streets and taking an interest first-hand in what the citizens think, Illa has led his alternative government outside of Barcelona and has imposed an intense schedule of visits to municipalities throughout Catalonia that have given him traveled more than 15,000 kilometers.
Since it was created, the alternative government of the PSC has met 42 times, eight of them outside the Catalan capital (Calafell, Os de Balaguer, Platja d’Aro, Tarragona, Badalona, ​​Mataró Cardona and Terrassa). And Salvador Illa has visited 315 municipalities, has met with 261 entities (many, the vast majority, on the occasion of the negotiations of the latest Catalan budgets) and has traveled a total of 15,163 km in Catalonia.
As if it were the president of Catalonia, the leader of the PSC has also made trips outside of Catalonia with the aim of reinforcing his presidential image. Some through Spain and others abroad, to Andorra, Paris, Lisbon and an annual trip to Brussels.
