“For the cohesion of the party after the congress, almost the worst thing that could happen has happened.” This is what an ERC member with a card for more than two decades reasons. What he is referring to is the very close result that came out of this Saturday’s vote, when the winner, Oriol Junqueras, was about 100 votes away from obtaining 50% of the support, which would have avoided a second round. “Whatever happens [en la nueva votación]”Someone who has not connected with half of the party will lead ERC,” says this veteran member, who remembers disastrous party congresses like the one in 2008.
This Saturday, Junqueras managed to impose himself as the candidate with the most votes and give a coup of authority against his main and now only rival, Xavier Godàs. But the 48.3% of the support he collected does not save him from the second vote nor from offering an image of a much less strong leader than he himself would like to project.
The raw result is overwhelming: despite not exceeding the 50% barrier, Junqueras obtained more support than the second and third candidates combined. That is why the former leader’s people see themselves as winners two weeks from now, no matter how much all their rivals rally around Godàs’ candidacy.
A more delicate issue is the situation in which the party remains after a congress that has strained the seams of ERC. Although in his appearance on election night Junqueras rejected this reading, the reality is that his candidacy presented the congress as a plebiscite on his leadership. And, if it has passed the test, it has been by the skin of its teeth and with the risk that a part of the militancy will ignore the incoming leadership, supported again by the person who has led Esquerra for 13 years and who would now have a executive without checks and balances.
When asked by journalists after the results were known, none of the three candidates to lead ERC showed concern about the image of internal rupture that the figures showed. Junqueras with 48, Godàs with 35, Solà with 12%. Not even a sum of the two small ones would surpass the large one, which also has no majority to hold on to. “ERC militancy is very mature,” Godàs has tried to temper bagpipes, who has assured that, if they do not win, his people will continue working for the party.
That is the politically correct answer, but not the one that all Esquerra militants give in private. “Is it worth presiding over a party if along the way you have left it a wasteland?” asks a former party official, very critical of Junqueras’ latest moves. Even in circles that have avoided aligning themselves in this congress, the feeling of pessimism prevails in the face of the Herculean task of re-fitting the two halves that have emerged in this vote.
Resew and disinfect?
Recoser has become a mantra word for all those involved in this ERC congressional process. No matter who you ask, everyone agrees that the first task of the new leader must be to forge new consensus within the party. In the first and only debate of the presidential candidates, everyone agreed on the possibility of both losers and winners participating in the drafting of the new political document, which must be voted on around February 2025.
More divisive is the expected change of names both in the executive and in the party’s visibility positions, depending on who wins on December 14. At the presentation of the Junqueras list last September, the candidate spoke not only of stitching but also of “disinfecting wounds.” An expression that upset his rivals but also some of the former leader’s closest supporters, due to reminiscences of a possible internal purge.
For this reason, after knowing the partial victory of Junqueras, the pools of the changes that could occur have begun. The politician arrives with a team that already has positions of visibility and that therefore only needs to be revalidated. Elisenda Alamany, who would be its general secretary in the party, would be reinforced as the visible face of ERC in Barcelona. And Gabriel Rufián, another of the mainstays of the Junqueras circle, would also consolidate himself in Congress.
The group in the Parliament, on the other hand, could notice the changes more. At this moment it is Josep Maria Jové who leads the ERC in the Catalan chamber, a position that could be taken over by former councilor Ester Capella, but which would also mean making changes in the dialogue with Moncloa that until now was carried out by Jové himself.
The relationship with the PSOE can last
Another of the derivatives of this first part of the ERC congress had to do with a possible change in the relationship between the Republicans and the Socialists. The party has suffered setbacks in all the elections it has run in the last two years, but it continues to be key for the majorities that support the central Government, the Catalan Government and the Barcelona City Council. And that was also under discussion this Saturday.
The result, however, reduces concern in both Ferraz and Moncloa. The most belligerent candidate against the agreements with the socialists, Helena Solà’s Foc Nou, has obtained 12.6% of the support which, without being a bad result, does not guarantee a presence in the next leadership. Junqueras can win without making concessions to this sector, while Godàs would need to get them on his side to run for the presidency. The final scenario remains open but, contrary to what was feared in the socialist ranks, the voting numbers have made it clear that the relationship with the socialists is not today the issue that most divides the ERC militant.
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