2023-07-24 18:26:00
BARCELONA.- Most of the polls suggested that the key to the next government would be held by the extreme right, but the tight Spanish legislative elections turned the Catalan independentista Carles Puigdemont in an unexpected protagonistsince his training might be key.
Even though he People’s Party (PP) won the elections, its result was not enough to achieve an absolute majority, not even with eventual support from the extreme right of Vox, which greatly complicates their options to govern.
This opens a way for the outgoing prime minister, the socialist Pedro SanchezTry to negotiate a complex investiture. He already has the support of the radical left-wing Sumar coalition, and now he should once once more win the support of various Basque, Catalan and Galician nationalist parties, with whom he usually counts in Congress.
A unitary act of pro-independence parties, in the Palau Robert Gardens, Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain), on February 1, 2021.
But this time Sánchez would also need the decisive abstention of the seven deputies achieved by Junts per Catalunyathe formation founded by Puigdemont, who went into self-exile in Belgium since the failed secession attempt in 2017.
The left-wing conglomerate Sumar announced on Monday that it commissioned one of its former leaders in Catalonia to start negotiations with Junts to “explore all avenues of agreement”.
However, this Monday, one day following the elections, The Spanish Prosecutor’s Office asked a judge to reissue an international search and capture order once morest the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
“One day you are decisive in forming the Spanish government, and the next Spain orders your arrest”ironized Puigdemont on Twitter, shortly following the Prosecutor’s Office requested to reactivate his arrest warrant following the rejection of the European justice to the appeal once morest the lifting of his immunity.
Representative of the hard line of secessionism, and contrary to the dialogue undertaken with Madrid, Junts adopted a position of systematic opposition to the Sánchez governmentunlike the other great pro-independence party, ERC, which has become one of its regular supporters.
And, now in a key position, the leaders of Junts do not intend to make things easy.
“We will not make Pedro Sánchez president for nothingour priority is Catalonia, it is not the governability of the Spanish State”, Miriam Nogueras, head of the list to Congress, assured the same Sunday night.
From together, that He already voted once morest the investiture of Sánchez in 2020reiterate that their positions have never changed, and they will not facilitate the government of anyone who does not support a self-determination referendum in Catalonia and the amnesty of those accused for their role in the secessionist attempt.
The holding by the government led by Puigdemont of a referendum in 2017, despite the prohibition of justice, led to one of the most serious political crises experienced in Spain in recent decades.
Despite the fact that Sánchez – who made détente in Catalonia one of his priorities following coming to power in 2018 – made decisions such as pardon the nine pro-independence politicians in prisonthe socialist leader would never give in to these demands, analysts estimate
Those pardoned by Pedro Sánchez.
“They are completely unassumable by any government of Spain, or state-level party, any of these two conditions”said Ana Sofía Cardenal, professor of Political Sciences at the Open University of Catalonia.
In Junts “they know that this is unassumable, but they will go to the end,” he added.
The final decision of the formation will depend, however, on their own calculations and their close competition with ERCwhich has been accusing a marked loss of votes in the last elections.
“If Junts is responsible for an electoral repetition, how is that going to take its toll electorally? I think that is the question that they are asking themselves now”, estimated Oriol Bartomeus, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
If the formation finally assesses that a new scrutiny might “sink Esquerra”, which fell from 13 to 7 deputies in the legislature, they will choose not to facilitate the Sánchez government, says the researcher.
The unexpected result on Sunday still leaves many open questions.
“It’s like an irony of fate,” said Ana Sofía Cardenal. “Many people from the PSOE who have gone to the right with the Catalan issue” -in reference to Sánchez’s concessions to the independence movement, highly controversial even within his own party- “and it turns out that [Puigdemont] is at the center of the political board for the governability of Spain”, he indicated.
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