Those who advocated that the amnesty had to serve to give stability to Catalan politics, and by extension to Spanish politics, have come face to face with a new electoral advance in Catalonia. The approval on Thursday in Congress of the law that should make it possible to turn the page on the “repression” according to the independentists and the instability derived from the process, According to the Government, it will still take at least two months to bear the first fruits. But it has served as a starting signal for the Catalan election campaign.
The May 12 elections will be the fifth in a row that are held early in a community where no government seems to be able to last more than three years. Artur Mas in 2012 and 2015. The Government, through article 155 of the Constitution, in 2017. The disqualification of Quim Torra in 2021. And now, Pere Aragonès. Everyone has had to give the word to the citizens ahead of time to get Catalonia out of the messes derived from the process. And, according to the speeches made on Thursday in the Congress of Deputies by the spokespersons for the pro-independence parties, nothing indicates that much will change in the short term.
Both Esquerra Republicana and Junts per Catalunya consider the amnesty not as an arrival point in a long negotiation process, but as the starting point towards an independence referendum. They verbalized it on Thursday in Congress with more or less clarity and those who did not do so from the stand pointed it out in other ways. ERC deputy Pilar Vallugera argued that the amnesty law once once more puts the independentists “in a position to face the next step” for the resolution of the Catalan political conflict: “the exercise of the right of self-determination.” And she made it clear that her party is not going to “stop demanding” even though the Catalan president and ERC candidate, Pere Aragonès, maintains that the path chosen by his party is that of a great pact that makes said referendum possible. .
Carles Puigdemont, one of the potential beneficiaries of the amnesty law, assured that the grace measure is not “an end point of anything,” but rather “a necessary condition, but not sufficient to resolve the conflict.” Puigdemont and Junts try to play the trick of having achieved the amnesty thanks to their seven deputies in Congress and, although on Thursday they tried to be elegant with their ERC rivals, they do not miss the opportunity to remember that the Republicans “only” obtained the pardons last legislature when they were decisive. Those from Pere Aragonès reply that everything would have been easier and faster if Junts had entered the game of governance and pacts earlier instead of having dedicated themselves to “anti-politics” for years.
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The campaign roles are set. What Junts has yet to confirm is whether Carles Puigdemont will be a candidate. From the moment the elections were called, Puigdemont has let himself be loved by his party, but he has not clarified whether he will run in the regional elections or only in the European elections in June, pending the calendar for the application of the amnesty. Junts sources assured on Thursday that the decision will be made and communicated next week. The main difficulty for Junts is to be able to guarantee that, if necessary, Puigdemont might return to Spain without risk of being arrested, for a possible investiture debate.
Unlike Puigdemont, Aragonès combines the discourse of the independence demand with that of a certain institutionality. For him, he claims the merit of having restored institutional normality in the Generalitat, which was left in tatters during the times of Carles Puigdemont and Quim Torra. Hence, he takes advantage of his interventions to bet on giving “predictability” and a clear path to Catalan politics.
But it will not be easy for the acting president to take over this institutional role. The one who most champions this is the socialist candidate, Salvador Illa, who this weekend will be ratified as leader of the PSC and as a great bet of socialism to recover some territorial power following the failure of the PSOE in the last regional elections. Illa arrives at the PSC congress and the May elections with the speech of returning to Catalonia the economic and social dynamism prior to the process and to put aside the divisions that have marked this decade. “Catalonia needs a president and not a candidate,” he says in reference to Puigdemont’s uncertain candidacy. And he denounces the “misgovernment” that in his opinion has been left by the sole executive of ERC in the Generalitat.
At the other extreme are the commons of Jéssica Albiach and Ada Colau, who hope to profit at the polls from their new, more inflexible left-wing role. With a CUP in the reconstruction phase and with ERC in a more institutional role, the commons have used their rejection of the authorization of a casino from the Hard Rock chain in Tarragona to make a point of being the only left-wing opposition. Albiach presents 12-M as a consultation on the country model: “Do we want a country of macrocasinos, precariousness, more insecurity and where water does not go to the countryside, but to the macrocasinos? Or do we want a country of culture, science and innovation?”
On the right flank it remains to be seen the final configuration of the PP and Vox candidacies, both with important internal conflicts also in Catalonia. In the case of the PP, it is not even clear that Alejando Fernández can repeat as a candidate taking into account his open confrontation with the national leadership of the party. However, all the polls show a significant rebound for the Popular Party, coinciding with the total collapse of Ciudadanos. And in Vox, Ignacio Garriga has expressed his intention to repeat despite the polls that point to a decline in the extreme right.
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