The joy for the results of the 28-M a Junts is inversely proportional to the quotas of power achieved. The final balance, say the well-intentioned, is comparable to CiU’s situation in 2003. Out of the Government and adjusting accounts at the municipal level. But the convergent gene knows that the scene and the protagonists of the desert crossing could not be more different. With CiU in the opposition, a lady approached a collaborator of Artur Mas and let him go: “Son, tell Mas that when you go back to govern I will vote for you again”. CiU’s usefulness in the meantime was the key to the return.
What is the purpose of voting together? This is the question repeated by many cadres and former senior officials after the fiasco of the City Council and the Provincial Council of Barcelona. Pacts with the PSC were encouraged in a Junts sector as an “internal lever of change”, but it was Xavier Trias himself who discarded them to be mayor and “let them bomb you” poisoned a pact in the deputation .
Pragmatism and consistency are at odds in Junts. At the summit they point out that preserving the spirit of 1-O and the “intelligent confrontation” is a medium-term investment that can bear fruit in the Catalan elections with ERC at its own crossroads. The pragmatists regret the “chronicle of an announced defeat” in the deputations and the institutional residualization of the party. And the borrasistas fish in murky waters. In his curriculum, the “incorruptible independence” shines unpolluted but without future development of the path of confrontation.
“A party is coherence, but it is also power and utility”, affirm the critics. ERC make the argument their own. They are trying to mobilize their electorate and cover up vote leaks towards the PSC, the commons, Junts, the CUP… Expanding the base also widens the escape routes… And before Junts they present themselves as a party of order and negotiation, willing to take on the contradictions to move forward. So many, who have suddenly erased four years of criticism of the PSC-Junts pact in the Diputació de Barcelona to open “a new era”, “without reproaches”. ERC and PSC govern together in the deputations of Lleida and Tarragona and the socialists extend their hand to Barcelona after the elections.
The handicap on 23-J is to endow the pro-independence vote with utility in the most polarized campaign. Gabriel Rufián and Míriam Nogueras have confirmed that their deputies will not serve to govern the PP. Then come the nuances. ERC wants to raise the price of support for a hypothetical investiture of Pedro Sánchez, by the hand of Bildu, and brings its pragmatism from the dialogue table to the transfer of Rodalies; meanwhile, Junts’ roadmap is limited to self-determination and amnesty.
Is the independence overtaking possible? Polls show that Junts is regaining ground, but there is not a torrent of votes passing from one party to the other. Militant abstentionism and disenchantment threaten progress. A bag of 300,000 undecided independence supporters is in dispute. And the usefulness of your vote.
