The independence movement, without a compass since 1-O

The members of the Catalan Executive led by Pere Aragonès (on the left), last Sunday at the Òmnium Cultural event. Carles Ribas

The political background sea that surrounded the day of September 11 this year in Catalonia has given rise to talk of the Day of discord.

The conflict within the independence movement continues to mark the political news, with a bipartisan government facing its worst crisis since it began in May 2021. At the moment, the attempts to appease the spirits between ERC and Junts have not borne fruit.

That Sunday, for the first time since the

began in 2012, the secessionist world exhibited in the street an internal division that was traditionally hidden in the demonstration organized every year by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), to which the

Pere Aragonès, chose not to attend.

The unity of approaches and action, essential to celebrate the illegal self-determination referendum on October 1, 2017 and later declare the failed break with Spain, has gone in five years from being a dogma to becoming a throwing weapon for the partisan parties of secession, further and further apart.

The week after the Diada has been a heart attack, and the rest of the month points in the same direction.

In August, Junts gave ERC until the end of September to correct the alleged lack of progress in the independence axis of the Government program.

If there are no changes after the General Policy Debate in Parliament, on the 29th, it will be the Junts militancy who will decide whether or not to break with the Republicans.

“The continuity of the legislature depends a lot on Pere Aragonès and ERC.

It is very simple: we must comply with the government agreement that we signed”, Junts spokesman Josep Rius recalled on Friday.

On Thursday, the

He had asked his partners to negotiate "without ultimatums, in a positive way", "strengthening the Government", on the margin of "internal party debates".

Not everyone in Junts sees fit to relinquish power.

The

of Junts, Jordi Turull, put on the table on August 31 the three conditions of his party: create a "space for coordination, consensus and collegiate strategic direction" of the independence movement;

a change of direction at the dialogue table with the Government to focus it exclusively on self-determination and amnesty;

and agree on the action of the secessionist deputies in Congress.

"It is good that we offer traceability and a horizon to citizens so that they can find meaning in their mobilizations," Turull said on Catalunya Ràdio the day after the Diada.

12:43

Where were the leaders of the 'procés' and where are they now?

Video: Virginia Martinez / Carlos Martinez / Paula Casado

The unity between pro-independence parties, entities and citizens, symbolized by the unitary candidacy of Junts pel Sí for the regional elections of 2015, to which the secessionists granted a plebiscitary character, is part of the most epic story of the

.

If there had not been a plan and coordination, for example, it would have been impossible to acquire, hide and distribute the ballot boxes, exposing the State intelligence services.

Whether that transversal agreement was monolithic or minimally solid is a different matter.

As was shown later, it always hung by a thread that was broken after 1-O and the failed unilateral declaration of independence on October 27, 2017, the famous DUI that led the Government of Mariano Rajoy to apply for the first time in democracy the article 155 of the Constitution and intervene Catalan autonomy for six months.

The digestion of the 2017 failure was different in each actor.

The part of the citizenry that had believed in the Government and came across the big lie felt that they had left it lying around.

ERC concluded that it was necessary to gain critical mass in the streets and arithmetic influence in Congress in order to force the State to negotiate a referendum.

Junts did not depart from the idea that there is a 1-O mandate to be executed (as the ANC says, which is already putting a date on the DUI for the second half of 2023), and maintained the path of confrontation .

The flight of the then

Carles Puigdemont to Belgium also opened a new front, that of internationalization, with the creation of the so-called Consell per la República.

In the last two regional elections (December 2017, called after the application of 155, and February 2021) the independence bloc may have won seats and maintained the Government, but trust and, above all, unity of action are far from much of which helped celebrate 1-O.

So, the speech was another.

The Diadas of the last five years had “Unity” as the second most sung motto, only behind “Independence”.

The political leaders saw in any questioning of that unit an attack on the independence project.

But, outside the spotlight, there was no day without a stab in the back to the adversary, who was accused of being the one who did not want to coordinate.

The dogma was becoming a weapon.

All this time, different sources of the pro-independence actors accept, they have worked stealthily to try to reach a minimum agreement.

This despite very strong clashes as a result of decisions such as that of the then president of the Parliament, Roger Torrent (ERC), to abide by the veto of the Central Electoral Board to invest Puigdemont after the December 2017 elections or the withdrawal of the seat to Quim Torre.

In January 2020, Torra announced the end of the legislature, thus responding to a host of disagreements.

The pandemic altered his plans, and also showed how both, post-convergent and Republican, boycotted each other in the management of that health crisis.

Far from the spotlight, however, attempts were made to rebuild the unit.

The negotiations reached a critical moment after the February 2021 elections. In the three months and three days that ERC and Junts took to agree on the investiture, it became clear that the role that the Consell per la República should have was a source of disagreement.

CUP, Junts, ANC and Òmnium had previously managed to moderate Junts' initial intentions of delegating the coordination of the roadmap to Puigdemont's entourage, but ERC considered that the approach was still unacceptable.

Republicans have always felt that Junts wants to impose Puigdemont's leadership within the independence movement, underestimating the ERC victory.

The investiture was closed with an agreement that establishes that the Consell carry out the coordination, after reformulating the Belgian entity in "consensus" with the other pro-independence actors.

The votes at the Assembly of the Consell, last November, left as a result that only two of the 40 seats are in the orbit of ERC.

To make matters worse, the ANC and Òmnium felt betrayed because, they say, they were not consulted on the final text of the pact.

However, the contacts continued until the beginning of this year.

In Junts they accuse ERC of separating from the table.

Voices from ANC and Òmnium accept that this moment coincided with the renewal process of their respective leadership, forcing a certain parenthesis,

but they don't understand why it wasn't reactivated.

The question is whether in two weeks it will be possible to speed up what has been unresolved for five years.

An ERC group asks Junqueras for a candidacy

The Colectivo Primero d'Octubre de ERC has called this Saturday for the party's militancy to seek alternatives to the current leadership of the party, led by the president, Oriol Junqueras, and the general secretary, Marta Rovira.

The group, a minority, takes advantage of the fact that on November 6 the new executive has to be chosen.

They defend that, if they stay ahead, they will accumulate more than 15 years.

Likewise, the group denounces that since 2019 the current leadership has been "moving away from the objectives resulting from the October 1 referendum." 

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