Esquerra Republicana has welcomed with a mixture of indignation and resignation the high sentences that the Prosecutor's Office is asking for the core of trust of the party's president, Oriol Junqueras, for the preparations for the illegal referendum on October 1, 2017. The indignation was clearly expressed by one of the defendants, Josep Maria Jové, who was dispatched on social networks accusing the public prosecutor of "miserable" and "cowardly".
The resignation is the one exhibited in private by the different party officials who take for granted the disqualification of Jové, who is currently president of the ERC group in Parliament, as well as Lluís Salvadó, in charge of the Port of Barcelona, a position that is nothing minor in the Catalan institutional framework.
Different sources close to the party leadership agree that,
The analysis made by the party leadership is that the latest judicial setbacks are due to a desire of the most conservative sectors of the judiciary to put stones in the path of the Pedro Sánchez government, using the pro-independence leaders as "interposed victims".
Hence, Pere Aragonès pointed out on Friday to "sectors of the Spanish judiciary" as responsible for, supposedly, exercising a merciless fight against the independence movement.
It was not a generic accusation against the “State” like those of Junts per Catalunya.
He also did not mention the Government at all, something that he had done on other occasions.
The objective of ERC is that the idea permeates the Catalan public opinion that they have done everything possible to clear the path of the so-called "removal of
judicial process
" with the reform of the Penal Code that ended the crime of sedition and reformed embezzlement.
And that if the judges continue to ask for very high sentences, now for the new crime of aggravated embezzlement for the pro-independence leaders, it is more due to an exercise in political militancy than due to legal rigor.
This is what is separating the independence movement the most these days.
While Aragonès and other ERC leaders pointed to these “sectors” of the judiciary on Friday, Junts charged in general against all the powers of the State.
"The siege of 1-O continues: the Spanish State increases virulence and does so using the new Penal Code," the Consell per la República, the entity that brings together the sectors closest to former President Carles Puigdemont, propagated on its networks that day .
With this message, those of Junts not only point to the "State", but also implicitly blame ERC for what happened due to its drive and support for the reform of the Penal Code.
Esquerra defends himself with the argument that thanks to the suppression of sedition and the changes in embezzlement, prominent leaders of Junts have been left with the judicial counter at zero and could even run for eventual elections.
This is the case of the former secretary general of the party Jordi Sànchez and Josep Rull, Territory Councilor with Carles Puigdemont.
The second has not hesitated in recent days to leave the door open to an eventual return to politics in the medium term.
Does ERC regret having promoted the reform of the Penal Code?
Nothing indicates that this is the case.
"There is no noise in the party in this sense," say the sources consulted.
They consider that it was a path that should be explored and that it may end up being useful in the future, even beyond the setback to Oriol Junqueras himself, for whom the Supreme Court has maintained his disqualification until 2031. On this basis, the party considers that there is no reason to change his political strategy and that the paper approved at his recent congress in January is still valid.
That is adding new electoral support to the independence cause so that, at some point that is not specified, the State is forced to negotiate an independence referendum.
It will be another thing if the ERC leadership led by Oriol Junqueras and Marta Rovira - in this case from Switzerland - comes out well of the electoral cycle that begins in May.
The polls are not favorable to them in Barcelona, a city where the Republicans won the municipal elections in 2019 despite the fact that they could not form a government.
And they do not lead the polls of the Generalitat either, despite now holding the presidency and having a lone government.
Added to the electoral agenda is the devilish judicial calendar.
The trial in the Catalan Superior Court of Josep Maria Jové, Lluís Salvadó and the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, still has no set date.
Of course, in the game it is taken for granted that it will be this year and they consider that it could even rush to just before or just after the summer.
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