To vote or not to vote? It is a debate that has been installed in the most recalcitrant sectors of the Catalan independence movement ahead of the general elections on July 23. The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) opened the controversy by proposing a null vote, with the 1-O referendum ballot, or abstain, and its affiliates will vote on this proposal the first week of July.
In parallel, eight entities linked to the independence movement -Ara o mai, CADCI, Catalunya Diu Prou, Catalunya Acció, Fundació Catalunya Estat, Acció Republicana Exterior, the Catalan Business Center and the Independent Lawyers Team- last week signed a manifesto to call for abstention. All of them charge against the independence parties (Junts, ERC and the CUP) because, in their opinion, they have abandoned the objective of achieving independence.
This Tuesday, the Consell de la República, the private political entity founded and chaired by the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, which has opted for a massive mobilization of the independence movement that allows it to block a possible investiture if the candidate does not “unequivocally” commits to a “political solution to the conflict, based on amnesty and respect for the right to self-determination.”
In a statement, the CdR government sees it as “imperative” that the pro-independence forces running in the general elections assume “the explicit commitment” not to guarantee the political stability of any Spanish government that does not commit to it and denounces that stability of Spain “has been used as a tool to subdue and repress the yearning for freedom and self-determination of the Catalan people”. In addition, he adds that the explicit commitment not to contribute to the stability of Spain “must entail the assumption of a clear independence agenda and a commitment to the path towards the Catalan Republic.” For this entity, this strategy requires that the parties committed to it have the maximum possible parliamentary weight, in such a way that they become a sufficiently numerous actor to be able to block the investiture.
The CdR, without mentioning the initiatives that call for abstention, warns that “for the same reason that no unionist party would ever ask for abstention among its voters as a way of combating independence, the Council calls for the massive participation of the independence in these Spanish elections”. And he defends that the “democratic overflow of Spain by Catalan society” that he claims to have promoted since its foundation “should take place in all possible scenarios: through citizen mobilization in the streets, nonviolent civil disobedience, but also within the different institutions.
