The Catalan elections of May 12 are much more than regional elections.
What is at stake transcends who governs the Generalitat.
Catalonia is crucial for Spanish politics and the country's governability and stability.
All the polls predict that the PSC will revalidate its position as the most voted force, an indicator of the political change after the turbulent years of the
process
, but the independence movement continues to monopolize almost half of the seats.
After a legislature clash between Esquerra and Junts, the two parties hope to prevail in the fight for hegemony in the independence electorate.
The fight to be second is already fierce when there is still a month and a half left until the elections - before that, on April 21, the Basque elections have to be contested - but the feeling that spreads is that every vote will be necessary.
In such an even fight, with Carles Puigdemont campaigning for his re-election as
president
from beyond the Pyrenees and Oriol Junqueras stating that he will return to prison for the self-determination referendum "if necessary", the two parties have opted to still rise plus the decibels to the independence demand.
The socialists, aware that it could alter their chances of returning to the Palau, appeal to the amnesty as the end point of the
process
and to the improvement of public services to turn the page on the identity debate.
In this context is the Government's decision to appeal to the Constitutional Court (TC) for the admission of a popular legislative initiative to unilaterally declare independence, which the Parliament table processed on February 20.
The emergence of Puigdemont, who last week announced that 12-M will choose to be the Junts candidate to lead the Government, altered the script of the Catalan pre-campaign, in which the focus was on management due to problems pressing issues such as the worst drought in decades or housing prices.
ERC started with the idea of selling its government work, hoping that measures such as free daycare would convince voters.
But Puigdemont, on the run since 2017 from Spanish justice in Belgium, recovered a certain epic tone in his debut about the possibility of “finishing the work” of independence, although he also tried to justify his pacts with the PSOE in Congress within a strategy of “intelligent confrontation” with the State.
The PSC tries to abstract itself from all that noise and maintains as a roadmap the reinforcement of self-government with plans such as the construction of desalination plants, reducing waiting lists in health and stopping being at the bottom of the PISA reports in education.
The leader of Junts did not stop repeating in Elna (France) something that is even written in his investiture agreement with the PSOE and that is nothing more than a declarative element: that the mandates arising from the illegal referendum of 1- EITHER.
But the staging, combined with a legitimist story - "now that the opportunity to restore the presidency dismissed by Article 155" is open - made clear the recipe with which the neo-convergents aspire to impose themselves, at least, on their former partners in the Govern.
The temporal coincidence between the electoral advance and the presentation of the singular financing proposal for Catalonia - which was also included in the investiture pacts - ended up reheating an atmosphere already charged by the negotiations with the independentists.
ERC, which suffered a lot during the investiture to remove the focus from Puigdemont, has chosen to increase the volume in the national folder.
The general secretary of the party, Marta Rovira, assured last weekend in an interview with
El Periódico de Catalunya
that the referendum was already being discussed with the PSOE, at the table that both parties have to coordinate and that is different from the one that exists between governments.
Ferraz flatly denies this, thus highlighting what has been the great red line in the attempt at a negotiated solution to the sovereignty crisis in Catalonia.
Rovira, also a fugitive from Spanish justice - in her case in Switzerland - avoided detailing the progress of this supposed debate on the independence vote.
Junqueras, president of ERC, also did his part to stir things up about the referendum: “With enough support from the people we should be able to do this.
And if it is necessary for some of us to have to go back to jail, we will go back.
Of course we will do it,” he said in an interview with
Nació Digital
about the referendum.
“The PSOE is not in any negotiation that talks about ruptures, referendums and divisions.
You will never find us in formulas that divide.
Between Esquerra and Junts there is a battle to see who is more pro-independence or to see who is more maximalist in their positions,” the main government party reacted through its spokesperson, Esther Peña, on
RTVE's
La Hora de la 1 .
The PSOE has confirmed that ERC and Junts feed each other and assumes that, in this fight for secessionist primacy, many independence demands will be put forward.
Hence, the PSC applies itself in the search for centrality and attracting 12-M to voters, of all ideologies, who want to turn the page on the identity debate and are concerned about the social and economic agenda that was eclipsed by the process
.
.
The Government's decision to appeal to the Constitutional Court for the popular legislative initiative - which was successful due to the abstention of ERC and the vote in favor of Junts and the CUP at the Table - is a gesture that seeks to attract dissatisfied voters from the constitutionalist bloc. , as Salvador Illa already did in the 2021 regional elections, while defending the amnesty to once again convince the most pragmatic pro-independence electorate, as already happened in the 23-J general elections.
Six weeks before the Catalan elections, the Council of Ministers this Tuesday will approve the processing to the Constitutional Court, reported by
El Mundo
.
In this way, the resolution will be automatically paralyzed, unlike the appeal raised by the Catalan socialists, the only ones who voted against accepting the procedure.
The lawyers of the Catalan Parliament issued a non-binding report in which they warned that the initiative went beyond regional powers.
The president of the Parliament, Ana Erra (Junts), thus went further in terms of confrontation than her predecessor, Laura Borràs.
The symbolism of the step that the Government will take is not lost on anyone.
The socialists have also reiterated their rejection of the referendum, when in addition the amnesty law has not even been approved.
“We do not opt now or in the future for options that divide society.
We are sitting down to talk about normalization, to talk about public services, to talk about growth, to talk about turning the page and that is also what Salvador Illa personalizes for the next elections in Catalonia,” Peña added.
“It is not on the table,” said PSC spokesperson Núria Parlon, who also ruled out that this vote could be a bargaining chip if pro-independence votes are needed to form Goven,
reports Marc Rovira.
The PP does not believe it and accuses Pedro Sánchez of “activating” the
process
.
“What we are witnessing today is the return to point zero of the independence process,” said his spokesperson, Borja Sémper, at the party's national headquarters after the meeting of the steering committee.
Sources from the popular leadership branded the unconstitutionality appeal that the Council of Ministers will approve as an “alibi,”
reports Virginia Martínez.
At the moment there is only one certainty: all the parties have already immersed themselves in the Catalan campaign, although it does not formally begin until April 26.
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