Oriol Junqueras will continue to be the person who leads ERC in the coming years. The man who has chaired the main left-wing independence organization in Catalonia since 2011 has obtained this Saturday the majority endorsement of the militancy to continue for another four years. In a complicated congress that has involved up to two votes and that has not yet resolved the presentation phase, Junqueras has finally obtained 52% of the endorsements against Xavier Godàs, the representative of the sectors closest to Marta Rovira, who have remained in 42%.
The journey that Junqueras has had to follow to reach re-election shows how agitated the waters are in Esquerra and the urgency with which he will need to close the internal wounds starting from this conclave. Junqueras has shown to clearly surpass his rivals in both votes, but has not managed to sweep in either of them, which demonstrates the division that the re-elected leader will find in the party.
The head of the Republicans returns to the engine room after voluntarily leaving last June, with the aim of having his hands free to campaign. It was at that moment when the tandem with Rovira broke down, since the general secretary was in favor of replacing the entire management while Junqueras was in favor of continuing.
Now the former vice president of the Generalitat will be able to lead ERC for the first time without the need for counterweights in the management and where, if he wishes, he only needs to count on his group of like-minded leaders, with Elisenda Alamany as general secretary. Junqueras has not hidden during the campaign that his desire is to run again in the elections as a candidate for the presidency of the Government, although for the moment the amnesty law has not been applied to him.
Once Junqueras’s return is confirmed, in principle the socialists should not fear for their agreements either in Congress or in Parliament. The Catalan and central governments have the Republicans as partners in both chambers and the winning candidacy in Esquerra does not come with the intention of taking a turn in alliance politics.
Despite this, in the final stretch of the campaign Junqueras has emphasized a somewhat more critical profile regarding compliance with the agreements with PSOE and PSC, implying that he is not happy with the current balance and that he will be more demanding towards Pedro Sánchez and Salvador Illa. “It must be clear that we will not sit down to negotiate budgets with the Socialist Party until it has complied with all the agreements it has already signed,” Junqueras said this week.
Although initially the veteran leader of Esquerra opted for a harsh speech against his rivals, Junqueras has lowered his tone as the campaign has progressed, aware that the grassroots militancy is panicking about a possible internal rupture. If in the presentation of his candidacy he spoke of “cleaning the wounds before healing them”, words that also generated astonishment in his ranks, he has finally chosen to highlight the similarities rather than the differences with Xavier Godàs.
Although at the moment little is known about the leadership that Junqueras plans to form, the winning candidacy, Militància Decidim, has some of the names closest to Junqueras. In addition to Alamany herself, the leader has received the support of former councilors such as Joan Ignasi Elena or Ester Capella. He also has the party leader in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, and the leader in the European Parliament, Diana Riba, on his side. No less important is the closeness he has with Joan Tardà, who is also the person who has received the most votes to join the ERC national council, another of the voted bodies.
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