Hungry heart by Bruce Springsteen plays in the amphitheater and gardens of the Cultural Center La Torreta de Montmeló. “Everyone needs a place to rest; everyone wants to have a home; no matter what anyone says; no one likes to be alone”, says the song and that’s when Salvador Illa and Pedro Sánchez melt into an embrace on stage.
167 kilometers away, ex-president Carles Puigdemont closes the Junts central campaign event, in Algiers, after singing Els Segadors with No Surrender, also by Springsteen. A song that speaks of resistance and affirmation. A whole declaration of intent for Puigdemont in the run-up to the May 12 elections.
Lyrics with a message that demonstrate a certain musical harmony between PSC and JxCat, but little else seems to unite them a week before the elections and when all forces are calling for the mobilization of their electorate so as not to leave any vote behind. This week is decisive for what may happen on Sunday and in the first five days the electoral race was monopolized by the outcome of the Prime Minister’s decision.
These elections are about Catalonia, but also about Spanish politics. And after the Basque elections in which Sánchez managed to save the situation, he needs a good result from the PSC. The President of the Government ties his future to the victory of Illa and Catalonia is once again – to paraphrase the Springsteen song – his “home”, and this was demonstrated in his first public appearance after announcing its continuity at the Feria de Abril in Barcelona. He needs a win to be able to face with some optimism the electoral race of the 9-J Europeans, despite the consequences it may have later on the governability of the legislature.
That is why yesterday Sánchez wanted to cut to the ground any statement that supports that the elections for the presidency of the Generalitat will end up being decided in Madrid. For the Prime Minister, pacts and the need for an agreement with the Catalan pro-independence parties in Congress are one thing, and the Catalan elections are another.
The day before Illa had already affirmed this emphatically in the Barcelona Tribuna forum when he pointed out that “the president of the Generalitat is elected by Parliament”, ruling out any maneuver in Moncloa. But Sánchez wanted to demonstrate yesterday that neither ERC nor Junts will decide the future of the legislature and, if Illa wins the elections, the pro-independence parties will leave the polls weakened.
For this reason, he raised a disjunctive: “blockage, paralysis, uncertainty and instability” or a “broad victory” of the PSC so that there is “more stability so that Catalonia advances in rights and coexistence”.
Sánchez attacked the PP and again spoke of “concord” between Catalans and made his own the phrase that the leader of the PSC repeats these days about the process and “the ten lost years of Catalonia”, a statement in which Illa insists in all his public interventions.
The dependence of the PSC candidate on Sánchez and the possibility that the Prime Minister will drop him in order to remain in the Executive was another of the affirmations that Alberto Núñez Feijóo made in the interview granted to La Vanguardia that post today In this he points out that “Illa cannot be president of the Generalitat if Sánchez does not authorize him. He’s there for whatever you ask him.”
An argument that goes along the same lines as that of the pro-independence parties in their criticism of the socialists. President Pere Aragonès, at the ERC central meeting in Pineda de Mar, brought together the PSC departments. From his hometown, he took a shot at his main competitors. On Junts he warned that voting for this formation means that “the cuts will return”, and on the PSC he warned that “if you vote for those from Moncloa, they will rule from Moncloa”. On the possibility of ERC losing the elections and ceasing to govern the Generalitat, he warned that “ten years of decline will come”.
The central meeting of Junts at the Jean Carrère pavilion in Argelers was another of the key points of the events held yesterday. Puigdemont, who gathered around 3,000 people, according to figures provided by Junts, accused the central government of “treating Catalans as second-class citizens” and “always giving more to Madrid”. “The interests of Moncloa will never come before the Catalans”, continued the Junts leader.
According to the former president, the PSC has interests outside of Catalonia and indicated that the socialists are “afraid” of the mobilization that their party is leading. For this reason, he celebrated that independence is back on with the conviction that he will win the elections.
In his speech, and with the intention of not leaving any vote by the wayside, the Junts candidate addressed all those independence supporters who are not clear about whether to vote on 12-M: “It is better to vote with doubts than not to have the doubt of which Catalonia we will have if Illa governs”.
The Commons candidate, Jéssica Albiach, also had words of criticism directed at Illa, of whom she said that “he looks more like an entrepreneur of a cement company than a social democratic leader” and again demanded clarifications from him on the possibility of a “transversal” pact with Junts, as he stated in previous days.
Vox’s candidate, Ignacio Garriga, went to Salt, a territory where the invasion of Aliança Catalana and its xenophobic speech may weaken his aspirations. From here the leader of the party Santiago Abascal replied to Feijóo about not dividing the vote of the right and advised him to “withdraw” the candidacies of the PP for Lleida and Girona.
During this last week and until May 12, the parties will mobilize to hunt the undecided. According to the CIS pre-election survey, 36.2% will decide their vote during these last days, of these 14.2% during the day of reflection and the same day of the elections.
Seven days left.
