Unlike what happened on September 11, 2022, the Government will go to this year’s pro-independence demonstration, which is traditionally organized by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural. From the Catalan Executive they do not clarify whether or not President Pere Aragonès will go to the rally that will have Plaça d’Espanya as its epicenter, but they admit that “the context” this year “is another”, an acknowledgment that contrasts with the doubts shown by ERC, in which authorized voices publicly bet to plant the ANC if it does not “rectify”.
The president’s attendance at the demonstration has become an incipient doubt in every premiere of the new political course in recent years. It was in 2021, when Aragonès chose to attend and received some boos, and especially last year, when he decided to be absent. He thus became the first president who did not attend from the peak of the process, a fact that evidenced the confrontation with the ANC and the fracture of independence.
The Government then alleged that it was a demonstration “against political parties and institutions, not against the Spanish State, which deepens the differences of independence”. Underlying it was the confrontation with the pro-independence organization and with Junts over the negotiation strategy maintained by Aragonès with the Government of Pedro Sánchez to try to resolve the Catalan “conflict”. The confrontation was consolidated after a short time with the departure of the post-convergents of the Government.
But this year, the ERC Executive believes that the political context has changed, so they will go to the protest that is expected to be the most crowded, the one in Barcelona, ??and the rest of those that will be organized throughout the Catalan territory.
The spokeswoman Patrícia Plaja did not clarify yesterday what the final decision of the president will be or which councilors will be alleging agenda reasons, but she assumed that “the Government will be there”. “Last year there was one context, this year there is another, and if the demonstrations are vindictive and, above all, inclusive, the Government will be there”, said Plaja. But “last year the starting point was not this”, he remarked.
The decision contrasts with ERC’s vagueness. On Monday, spokeswoman Raquel Sans avoided specifying whether her party would participate in the ANC demonstration. The debate is boiling among the republicans, as evidenced yesterday by the former deputy in the Congress Joan Tardà, who defends that the ERC does not manifest itself with the ANC: “If they want us there, let them rectify”.
Although the president’s attendance cannot yet be guaranteed, Government sources point out that it will be clarified soon. In the meantime, we will have to wait for events surrounding the investiture of the President of the Central Government, which precisely shapes the new political context.
The acceptance of Junts to negotiate the investiture of Sánchez reaffirms the Government that its strategy “is correct” and represents “an opportunity to continue making progress in the resolution of the political conflict” in view of an eventual electoral repeat, which it would be “a bad scenario” because it would give “a new opportunity to the right”, warned Plaja.
