The general secretary of JxCat throws in the towel unable to take the party to positions of centrality
Stepping aside exposes need for unified leadership and strategy
jordi sanchez he leaves because he is fed up. Nobody will say it openly, but this is a good part of the truth. And it is not only a political issue, but a personal one. Sànchez is a man with a thousand faces, struggled in the political maneuvering for years, with an enviable agenda, hardened in prison and with the credentials of a leftist but pragmatic man. He has been at the forefront of a new invention of the ‘ex-president’ for two years Carles Puigdemontcalled Together for Catalonia. And he throws in the towel because he has not gotten away with it: create a centered, orderly party that fights with ERC for the centrality of independence, far from the bets that he and so many call magical, based on promises of secession in the short term, unfeasible and unserious, according to Sànchez, and condemned to diminish the commitment to the State itself.
The still general secretary of JxCat knew that this was a difficult bet, which required time. But he has thrown in the towel because he can’t take it anymore. The list of internal clashes between pragmatism and inflamed rhetoric is very long and has always been settled in favor of the unredeemed, led by the president of the Parliament and former candidate for president of the Generalitat, Laura Borras, champion of a policy of challenges. Challenges that, later, reality denies, such as their compliance in the ‘Juvilla case’the attempted blockade of Meridiana Avenue in Barcelona or the refusal to agree anything with the PSC despite governing the city together Barcelona Provincial Council.
The eternal dilemma
Sanchez has tried. He has fought a lot. He has maneuvered, he has tried to maintain the endorsement of Puigdemont, you have used your long list of contacts. But he has lost, although in a man like him losing must always be conditional. The latest defeat has been no minor: a transcendent pact to update the consensus around the language immersion from Catalan.
The underlying question has remained the same for two years: either Junts is a government partywith a majority vocation and therefore open to different sensitivities, to pact, to respond to social complexity with a mature and complex message, or is it a activist organization that seeks above all the above to find a propitious moment to once again generate a fracture with the State by any means except violence. This is the question. And in this dilemma, Sanchez is on one side of the trench and Borràs, on the other.
the dark obverse
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This portrait of Sànchez has its obverse, according to critics: a man with double standards, who constantly maneuvers, distrustful and with difficulties in uniting teams. “He’s smart, but he plays alone“, summarizes a member of the Government. And, certainly, in two years, Sànchez has accumulated daggers. Sectors that do not get along with each other have found a meeting point in the common adversary: the secretary general. They make him ugly that he has decided key issues such as the Government pact with ERC.
Sànchez, yes, take a step to the side. But it is a move that now reveals the big question for Junts: who is in charge of the game? We will see if Borràs or the former convergent Jordi Turullthe one designated by all as successor, know how to establish order and a clear and viable course against the great adversary: an Esquerra that has surpassed them at the polls.