Catalonia will return this next week, except for a sudden change of script, to activate, for the fourth time in a decade, the clock of a possible electoral repetition as no candidate has enough votes to be invested president of the Generalitat. The socialist Salvador Illa, winner of the May 12 elections, has asked for more time to build a left-wing majority of 68 deputies, and thus close an alliance with ERC and the commons, while the former president Carles Puigdemont is rushing through the weeks with the desire to appear in Parliament already granted amnesty and without risk of being arrested. With a volcanic and very complex situation, which not even the approval of the amnesty law has calmed, the outcome is in the hands of Esquerra in full catharsis. The Government of Pedro Sánchez hopes to resolve the hieroglyph with a delicate agreement on the “unique” financing of Catalonia that, even before being defined, has angered the PP, some barons of the PSOE and some of the minority parties on which governability is based of Spain, like Compromís.
The negotiations started this Tuesday and the ERC spokesperson, Raquel Sans, sent this message to the socialists: “If your proposal is not good, the militancy will not endorse it.” The 12-M certified the loss of the absolute majority of the independence movement (from 74 to 59 deputies) and, with it, the decline of the processes. But instability remains rooted in the Parliament and, by extension, threatens the solidity of the Government. The situation will undoubtedly have an impact on the future of the Executive whether Illa is invested with the votes of ERC (due to the reaction of Junts) or not (in case it unbalances and undermines the majority of the investiture). Josep Rull, its president, one of the former Junts councilors who served prison time and was pardoned, plans to sign this Wednesday the resolution of an “act equivalent” to the investiture so that the clock for a hypothetical electoral repetition, which would take place on October 13. Rull will visualize that decision in a plenary session without a candidate for the investiture and in which the groups will have five minutes to present their position in a chamber that is still divided in two.
The scenario is also complicated by the rebellion and the refusal of a good part of the judicial leadership to apply the amnesty law, which may condition the timing and the return of Puigdemont, who stated that he would attend the first investiture debate, which is looming. for August. The State Attorney’s Office has asked the Supreme Court to “immediately lift” the arrest warrant against the former president. The misgivings are great: Oriol Junqueras, leader of ERC, has already ruled out his party’s proposal to be the head of the list in an eventual electoral repetition because he believes that it will take a long time (he is disqualified for 13 years) to be amnestied. .
Josep Rull, one of the former Junts councilors who served prison time and was pardoned, plans to sign this Wednesday the resolution of an “act equivalent” to the investiture so that the clock for a hypothetical electoral repetition, which would take place on October 13, is activated . Rull will visualize that decision in a plenary session without a candidate for the investiture and in which the groups will have five minutes to present their position. The “equivalent act” was the imaginative solution that was devised four years ago, after the conviction of the former president Quim Torra for a crime of disobedience and for the clock to start ticking to form a Government or repeat the elections.
It is, of course, not an exception that the countdown is activated in Catalonia: it happened in 2016 with the investiture of Puigdemont himself, voted in the last breath; in Torra’s 2018 session, after the successive suspension and prohibitions of the Constitutional Court (Puigdemont), the Supreme Court (Jordi Sánchez) or the orders to enter prison (Jordi Turull) after a failed first debate and before the second session; that of Pere Aragonès, in 2021, already in the midst of the fratricidal struggle between ERC and Junts, and now that of Illa as the most voted candidate (42 seats) or that of Puigdemont (35). The leader of Junts would inevitably need the abstention of the PSC – adding the votes of ERC and the CUP – to achieve the presidency. Illa has had enough of saying that this will not happen and of repeating that Puigdemont has no chance, a position that Pedro Sánchez also maintains.
Junts replies that this majority is operational and plays with the fact that their votes are key in Congress to support Sánchez’s Government, whom he remembers did not win the elections either and came second. The situation is not exact because a Puigdemont presidency would require the PSC to abstain despite having won the elections. Even the CUP has asked Puigdemont to stop fantasizing. The point is that the scenario is so complex that it is necessary to look at it almost with progressive glasses to focus properly: the possible pacts in the Parliament (a possible PSC and ERC alliance) can have an impact in Congress (the consequences of the anger of Together). The independence movement, in any case, has already won a first battle with a majority in the Table (four members compared to three from the PSC) despite the fact that it no longer has it in the chamber.
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Illa says that she doesn’t want to rush anyone and that she prefers to delay rather than close a pact that is not solid. All the focus will be on these two summer months in Esquerra, whose spokesperson, Raquel Sans, warned this Saturday that the militancy will not endorse any proposal if it is not “a good agreement.” ERC is now immersed in a colossal catharsis that first claimed the resignation of the still president Pere Aragonès and which has culminated in an unprecedented manifesto of his paintings, signed by 900 people, which seeks to get Oriol Junqueras to definitively step aside from the direction. It is still curious because those who ask for renewal are the same cadres and the visible faces of the party. ERC is now split in two and immersed in a difficult crossroads: the militancy will decide and they need to offer an agreement solid enough to captivate it. If the members reject it, the scenario could turn 180 degrees because Carles Puigdemont could return and campaign in Catalonia if there is a repeat election. And it would not be easy for ERC to vote for an investiture against him.
The investiture process has been swamped by political tactics. After stating that Puigdemont was interested in being the first to submit his candidacy to the plenary evaluation, Junts chose to put on the handbrake to demand that Illa be the first to attempt the investiture. The maneuver tries to give Puigdemont extra time until it is known what scope the amnesty has for him and, in addition, seeks to put ERC in a bind: the Republicans have a difficult time justifying to the independence movement that they support Illa at first, without having staged Firstly, a desire to give Puigdemont a chance, despite the fact that his options are a chimera.
Now, with the electoral countdown activated, Illa proposes negotiating with discretion and political skill. In the PSC they are aware of the ERC situation but warn that the Republicans may lose weight and relevance (they are now decisive in the Parliament) if elections have to be held again in the fall. All parties will have to deploy a lot in a five-way negotiation or at five different tables in Barcelona and Switzerland: the PSC with ERC; PSC with the commons; Junts with ERC (Puigdemont and Marta Rovira have already met in Geneva) and the PSOE with ERC, on the one hand, and with Junts on the other. The future of the Catalan investiture and the stability of the central government depends, to a large extent, on whether this network of negotiations reaches a successful conclusion.
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