Junqueras tries to tackle the internal debate in ERC betting on Trias

The president of Esquerra, Oriol Junqueras, bet yesterday openly for Xavier Trias, winner of Sunday in Barcelona, to be the future mayor of the city, thus ruling out being in the alternative sum promoted by the PSC and the commons to govern the City Council. That forcefulness came precisely on the day when public questions began to emerge about the electoral strategy of the ERC leadership, still knocked out by the defeat of 28-M. As happened last Monday, when he pointed to Gabriel Rufián candidate for the repetition of the general elections, Junqueras anticipates any internal debate, marking the way forward.

More information

Collboni maintains his intention to be mayor at the head of a progressive majority

Almost a third of the 300,000 votes that ERC left on Sunday, compared to 2019, is attributable to the Catalan capital. Ernest Maragall went from first to fourth force. The initial commitment to leave all scenarios open in the post-election negotiation changed on Monday morning, when the advance of the general elections to July was announced. With the PSC as an enemy to beat and seeking a rapprochement with Junts, the ERC leadership was quick to point to the independentistas as preferred partners. Yesterday, Junqueras gave the final twist and, without nuances, openly opted to let Trias be mayor.

"The best thing for Barcelona is that there is a mayor linked to an independence party, committed to amnesty and self-determination and not other formulas that those same parties [PSC and Barcelona en Comú] have already used against us, agreeing with the extreme right [Manuel Valls]," said the former vice president at a press conference in the Parliament.

The Republican leader recalled how Ada Colau revalidated the mayor's office in 2019, when she was the second most voted list after Maragall. The former French prime minister supported her then, in a maneuver piloted by the PSC and that justified some "free votes" in order to prevent the independence movement from occupying the Mayor's Office of the Catalan capital. Until now, the debate had focused on a veto to the Socialists, but Junqueras now pointed specifically to the legitimate instrument of the alternative sum with an absolute majority. .

The digestion of the first great defeat of Junquerismo is not being easy. The former spokesman of ERC in Madrid, Joan Tardà, published yesterday in El Periódico an article in which he advocates for the progressive majority in the City Council, yes, with Colau as mayor. It is an exotic approach, since the PSC is the second most voted list, but the former deputy points to the central issue of seeking not to waste a possibility of stopping Junts. On social media, the commons have coordinated to remember every detail of the convergent legacy of Trias' first term, a way to influence the bases of ERC. Republican and common voices agree that if it is difficult to see Maragall accepting a PSC that he blames for having politically killed his brother Pasqual, it is even more difficult for him to give free rein to a representative of the most classic Convergència, of "dubious independence".

But while Tardà doubts whether it will be possible to justify a neo-convergent mayoralty in the same way, other voices suggest that the cause of the decline was to park the independence issue in the campaign. The former leader of ERC in Barcelona, Alfred Bosch, denounces the will that the formation "does not seem independentist", the result of the "complexes of sectors of ERC, which do not suffer in the accusations of bad sovereigntists and, instead, sweat blood with the accusations of bad progressives ". And he finishes in an article on the Parlem Clar portal: Sunday's result "may end up being only a first warning of an even stronger punishment."

Bosch, who won the party's primaries to repeat as head of the list in Barcelona in 2019, saw how Junqueras set him aside to put Maragall as a candidate. The criticism, however, is not a mere revenge and picks up one of the doubts after election night. The president of ERC defended yesterday the campaign made by the former socialist, also with many reservations in order to agree with his former party, supported by the municipal group. Maragall, who had already met with Trias, did the same with Collboni and Colau, although in all three cases, they insist on their environment, they are "first contact".

ERC does not even have to explicitly support Trias in the constitutive plenary session of the City Council. Just by giving his five votes to his own leader Maragall leaves the door for Junts to return, because with its 11 councilors it managed to be the most voted force. Collboni, who reappeared yesterday at the Conference of the Circle of Economy after days of absence, said that he does not throw in the towel in his claim to lead the alternative majority. "We have spoken to everyone except the far right," he said. Colau also opted to block the passage of the former mayor and framed there his decision to decline to go to the lists of Yolanda Díaz's project for the generals.

That Junqueras yesterday put at the center of his requests to ensure "pro-independence majorities in the supra-municipal bodies" gives clues about where there may be negotiations that impact the pact in the Catalan capital. In the Diputació de Barcelona, for example, the PSC can choose between repeating Executive with Junts or agreeing with ERC. The experience of Valls, four years ago, marked in a murky, almost sinister way, the legal and legitimate option of seeking alternative majorities if the arithmetic allows it. Some shadows that at the moment Trias capitalizes after being photographed, yesterday, in broad daylight, with his ten councilors at the door of the City Council of Barcelona. "I will be the mayor with more or less support," he said.

You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter

75% discount

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber