Borràs and Turull rush their options to lead Together

Junts per Catalunya will close at 4:00 p.m. this Tuesday the deadline to present the candidacies to lead the party and, for now, the unknown is absolute.

After the resignation of Carles Puigdemont and Jordi Sànchez, the former councilor Jordi Turull and the president of the Parlament, Laura Borràs, are emerging as the main candidates to lead the formation in the congress on June 4.

Leaders of Junts, including councilors and deputies, promoted last week the manifesto entitled

in favor of Turull assuming the general secretary and Borràs the presidency in a more institutional role.

The two parties have narrowed down their options and maintained hermetic negotiations until this Monday.

The result of the same will throw a pact or a pulse between the two souls of Junts.

The outgoing leadership is in favor of creating a single list to avoid suspense and unnecessary wear and tear on a party that is barely two years old.

The aforementioned manifesto encourages the two applicants to strengthen complicity.

Junts, in fact, is going through a delicate situation by losing three of its main visible faces in the space of a month: Sànchez surprised in April by revealing in a National Council that he would not be eligible for re-election as general secretary;

Puigdemont announced on the 3rd that he was resigning from the presidency for not being able to dedicate himself and wanting to focus on the Consell de la República and three days later the deputy and former vice president of the party Elsa Artadi unexpectedly abandoned her political career.

In an interview on

ànchez himself

advocated this Monday for the "unity of the party" and insisted that a two-headed leadership of Turull and Borràs is the best option to value the strengths of Junts and to give packaging to the training.

The still general secretary defined them as “charismatic people” who do not hide a “strong personality”.

On the horizon appear the municipal elections of 2023, a territory, the local world, which historically gives good returns for the convergent substratum that Junts embodies.

In addition, whoever takes the reins of the party will have to deal with the permanent uncertainty that exists in the Government and with the possibility that any scratch will cause the definitive break with Esquerra.

Turull embodies the more pragmatic attitude of Junts against the more radical icon that Borràs represents.

A large number of Junts positions, although also independent, made a first move in this pre-congress race with the presentation of the aforementioned manifesto.

The signatories, more than 200, advocate for unity and for granting Turull the executive power and Borràs the role of replacing Puigdemont.

The big question is whether the current president of the Parliament, who aspires to have more decision-making weight, is going to confirm herself with that relatively secondary role after having swept the party's primaries in 2020 to be a candidate for the 14-F elections.

Borràs also faces a possible suspension of her rights as a deputy if the Superior Court of Catalonia dictates the opening of an oral trial for being charged in a corruption case.

Against the more orthodox line of Junts, Borràs has aligned himself with the most radical sectors of the party and has been an accomplice in the gestures and shared many of the positions of former president Quim Torra.

The deputy she has distanced herself, for example, from the pacts with the PSC in the Barcelona Provincial Council, which the executive blessed and proposes to renegotiate relations with Esquerra.

In an interview in

Borràs slipped that the Junts congress was not about “charges but about projects” and that the “urns are never a problem but rather the solution”.

And he warned in any case only a part of the affiliates had signed the manifesto.

The text was signed, among others, by former directors Quim Forn, Josep Rull and Meritxell Budó and several of those who are now in the Government such as Jaume Giró and two independents such as Victòria Alsina or Josep Maria Argimon.

Sources from the environment of Borràs specified that he would not reveal his decision until this Tuesday.

The pulse is still in the air while Jordi Sànchez has not hidden that Junts "has lacked group loyalty".

The former secretary general has finished his mandate weakened by criticism and reproaching the abundance of dissonant voices within the formation, even on issues that are part of the electoral program.

By way of warning, the still general secretary stated: “When a decision is made, you have to defend yourself, close ranks.”

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