If you and I, here, right now, drank a shot of ratafia for every time we the ERC candidate Gabriel Rufián has praised Irene Montero during this campaign we would end up in a comatose state. Let’s not do it, then, after all, it is just a rhetorical resource to underline the insistence with which the Republicans are trying to capitalize on their support for the Minister of Equality in this contest, in open contrast to the veto decreed by the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díazwhich seems to have metaphorically marked Montero with a scarlet letter (the P for problematic, which is the P for Podemos) to keep it away not only from the candidacies but also from the acts of the electoral race.
That between Sumar and Podemos there is more tension these days than in the skin of a bongo is something that was taken for granted. What is new is this stubborn rapprochement between Esquerra and Irene Montero, which has materialized with an invitation from the Government of the Generalitat to the minister to visit the sexual and reproductive health unit and the health care service for trans people at CAP Numància and, incidentally, to share a talk with the ‘councilor’ of Igualtat i Feminismes, Tània Verge, in a room of the Palau Robert; an act of the latter that, technically, falls outside the framework of the 23J campaign, but that…, anyway.
Absolute majority
The importance that ERC attaches to the presence of Montero in Barcelona is attested by the large number of party leaders and officials who have come to the crowded Sala Cotxeres of the neoclassical palace on Passeig de Gràcia. Laura Vilagrà, Ester Capella, Marta Vilalta, Teresa Jordà, Diana Riba, Pilar Vallugera, Elisenda Alamany… The Republican front prevails by an absolute majority over the much more discrete representation of the space of the Comuns and Sumarmade up of the peacemaker Gerardo Pisarello, Joan Mena and little else.
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In each of his interventions, Montero draws enthusiastic ovations from the assistants (the male presence among the public is, to put it in some way, testimonial), and that the minister avoid stepping on the puddle of current events of the electoral campaign beyond claiming his management at the head of the ministry, to alert against the offensive of the reactionary front that “intends to cut rights & rdquor ;, to defend the need for feminists to do politics and to criticize those who maintain that equality policies must be carried out “without making noise & rdquor ;. Of course, aware of the composition of the audience, he drops that “all the democratic advances & rdquor; that have been achieved in this legislature “They have borne the stamp of the multinational majority & rdquor; congressional. The people of Esquerra leave their hands applauding.
The ‘councillor’ Verge has a harder time not going from the institutional act to the campaign rally. “This is not the time to hide feminist policies, nor to make soft policies that do not bother, nor to veto people”, he says. Montero smiles and drinks water. Shortly after, in Badalona, Gabriel Rufián will praise him. shot!