The two candidates for the presidency of ERC have shown themselves willing to complicate the stability of Salvador Illa’s Government if they lead the party. Oriol Junqueras and Xavier Godàs, who are fighting to get the 800 votes from the anti-PSC list that was left out of the second round of the ERC elections, have struggled to show toughness before the socialist Executive.
Two days before the final vote that this Saturday will decide the leadership of ERC, Oriol Junqueras and Xavier Godàs have had a face-to-face meeting on Catalunya Ràdio. The debate has, in general, been kid gloves, without excessive tensions between candidates. Even Godàs said that he “wanted to get to know Junqueras better”, who, for his part, sent a “brotherly hug” to his rival.
There have been no general amendments to the past, but rather a common will to “re-stitch” a party that, whoever wins, will be split in half between supporters and detractors of Junqueras.
This was confirmed by the result of the first round of the elections on November 30. Foc Nou, the candidate most opposed to the pact with the socialists, achieved 12.6% of the votes. Junqueras was on the verge of winning the first round: he added 48.3% of the votes (he needed more than 50% to close the race), compared to 35.3% for Godàs. The 824 votes of Foc Nou, which gave its members freedom to vote this Saturday, will be decisive.
Junqueras has an advantage heading into Saturday, since the sum of his rival candidacies in the first round was less than the support obtained by the former ERC president.
The only moments of friction between candidates in the debate on Catalan public radio have occurred due to the pacts with the socialists and the will to reunite the party after the internal conclave.
As happened in the first debate, Junqueras has refused to answer up to three times to Godàs’s question about what he voted for in the internal consultation that supported supporting Illa’s investiture.
“There were many reasons to vote no,” Junqueras limited himself to saying without specifying his vote. The former president of the party has warned that he will not sit down to negotiate the Catalan budgets with Illa “if the PSC does not first comply with previous commitments.”
“ERC has to demand that the agreements be fulfilled, and if they are not fulfilled we will not guarantee governability, we will make governments falter and our legs will not shake,” Godàs has deepened, exhibiting a strong hand against the socialists.
Internally, Godàs, considered close to former Secretary General Marta Rovira, has accused Junqueras of “underestimating the alternative” that his list represents. Junqueras, true to his style, has dedicated a “brotherly hug” to him and has chosen to forget the past by refusing to “make a list of the things that have been said” about his presidency and his eventual knowledge of the false flag campaigns that were launched. from within the formation, like the cartels against the Maragalls.
The headliners of Militància Decidim (Junqueras) and Nova Esquerra Nacional (Godàs) have shown differences in the strategy they believe the party should follow, although both have ruled out the unilateral route and have opted to maintain the negotiation with the State . “The process is over,” stated Godàs, while Junqueras admitted that independence “is not as close as it seemed in 2017.”
Godàs has considered that the formation must “captain” a left-wing space in which it includes the Comuns and the CUP, since the Republicans “cannot please everyone,” in reference to the interclass strategy deployed by Junqueras, who has advocated for an ERC “as big, strong and useful as possible.”
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