The Catalan elections are four weeks away and the scenario is more uncertain than it seems. Although the polls agree on a PSC victory and a more or less close tie between ERC and Junts, the distance that may result between these parties will be decisive for the new political phase that has already opened in Catalonia after the process and even for the future of Pedro Sánchez.
For the first time in 20 years, the PSC has options to govern. This does not mean that independence ceases to play a key role. Even if Salvador Illa obtained the presidency of the Generalitat, he would have to do so with the more or less tacit support of at least one pro-independence party, as already happened with Pasqual Maragall, who governed with ERC. The socialists believe that the Left of today is not the Left of that time and that it has more experience of government, so they trust to reach agreements.
But this is a three-way battle, between socialists, republicans and Junts. Whatever the outcome, ERC will be a key piece, as it is in a position to agree with the other two vertices of the triangle. This transversality complicates the campaign, due to the difficulty of satisfying border voters with the PSC and Junts at the same time.
Although Pere Aragonès insists on claiming the management of the Generalitat, the republicans cannot avoid a certain obsession with Junts. Wresting the scepter from Convergència as the hegemonic party of Catalanism has been ERC’s biggest motivation for years. Aragonès did not resist the temptation to challenge Carles Puigdemont for prominence by going to “troll” the PP in the Senate on the occasion of the Amnesty law and ended up harming the PSOE. A strategy not shared by Oriol Junqueras, who has gone to Congress several times to support with his presence the law and the bloc that votes for it.
The polls show a battle between ERC and Junts for second place. If the republicans win it, they will be able to establish their alliances with the socialists in various institutions. If they lose, we will have to see how they digest it internally. Forcing a repeat election may hurt them more. The president would be weakened and Junqueras would remain disqualified and could not be a candidate.
If Junts won, the republicans would have no choice but to facilitate Puigdemont’s return to the Palau de la Generalitat. No poll shows the former president as the winner, but an earthquake like the one that could cause his return before 12-M would alter everything. Puigdemont has assured that he will not return until the investiture session, the amnesty already approved, but he has changed his mind many times.
The leader of Junts exploits a campaign with epic stories about his “restitution” as president, although it is not clear what he would do if he regained the position. Puigdemont will not participate in any electoral debate with the justification that he cannot step on Catalonia, although in principle he could do so under equal conditions on the radio, for example. The former president preserves his figure above the daily political grind. His candidacy has marked the pre-campaign and it is possible that he will gain attention until the 12th.
If Junts is left out of the power equation after the elections, that is, if there is some kind of agreement between socialists and republicans to leave Puigdemont in the opposition, this could have consequences in Congress. The PSOE hopes, however, that Puigdemont approves the State budgets whatever the result in Catalonia to prevent the progressive majority achieved in the Constitutional Court from turning its back on the Amnesty law or that a PP government hinder its application.
For Sánchez, it would be a relief if Illa presided over the Generalitat, whether with the help of the commons or not. A good result in Catalonia will allow him to face the European elections better, but above all it would give him ammunition to fight the PP’s campaign against amnesty. Alberto Núñez Feijóo will also be able to show off a good result by absorbing what is left of Ciutadans, but the PP will continue to have little weight in Catalonia.
If the PSC were to win clearly, Sánchez could open the regional financing melon, which the Catalan Socialists have been negotiating with Minister María Jesús Montero for months, with a view to having a proposal that the PSOE leader wants him to contribute to dismantle arguments that served to promote the process, even if it is not a “singular” financing or in the Basque Country, as independence demands.
The 12-M appointment starts as a three-way battle, but it is foreseeable that during the last week it will be polarized between two options and that phenomenon can dismantle the forecasts of the polls. The useful vote will be concentrated between the non-independence party represented by Illa and the pro-secession party, be it ERC or Junts, with greater tension between the two poles if it is Puigdemont. Despite the fact that the process is giving way in the public debate and Catalonia has entered a more possibilistic phase of the pro-independence parties, the national axis has had and will continue to have a decisive influence on Catalan politics, a reflection of its society, and will be determining one way or another to the next government of the Generalitat.
