Artur Mas, then Puigdemont lived through so many historic days that the concept is highly devalued, but October 7, 2022, the verdict of 55.7% of JxCat militants – leaving the Government with ERC – can be a “historic” date. The strategic unity of the independence movement, which has been the dominant vector of Catalan politics since the 2012 elections – when Mas lost 12 seats and CDC and ERC undertook the “journey to Ithaca” – has been broken with a great crash.
And if the crockery is not recomposed – a difficult thing – the end of the independence unit can lead to the loss of its monopoly over the Generalitat. The independence movement will continue to count, but not dominate.
Let’s go by parts. What will happen now? Aragonès will not call elections because a majority is impossible for a motion of censure (it would require the vote of Junts, PSC… and someone else). ERC will continue to govern and the PSC before the next general elections -out of responsibility, as Illa has said and for the convenience of Sánchez- he will not make life impossible for him and will vote on the 2023 budgets. And Aragonès may even tempt some of the ‘consellers’ who did not want to break (Josep Mari Argimon, Jaume Giró, Victòria Alsina, and Lourdes Ciuró) with continuing in the Government. It would be a gesture to the moderate sector of the Junts electorate. It will? Who will accept it?
I don’t see any problems for ERC either in the spring municipal elections or in the legislative elections. If he needed it, he could harden his attitude in Madrid. His problem will come after the next Catalan elections. With whom will he have to agree? With Junts who will continue to insult her? With the PSC? In this case -perhaps with internal tears- ERC would become a kind of Catalan PNV with many more deputies in Madrid. But this is a distant horizon.
Since 2012, its strategic unity is what has allowed the independence movement to maintain its monopoly over the Generalitat. Now you can start another stage
Today the great protagonist of the rupture of the pro-independence crockery is JxCat that, in addition, is also split in two. In short, the division of those who would like to go to an updated CDC is difficult because the mayors cannot improvise a brand before May. But in the legislative it is likely that Junts, controlled by Puigdemont, Laura Borràs and the silent Jordi Turullcannot hold the royalists.
Puigdemont and Borràs (for different reasons) no longer saw clearly that jordi sanchez, a resilient politician whom Puigdemont could not or did not want to prevent access to the Junts secretariat, agreed to the coalition with ERC last year. But, or that… or new elections. But it’s been months. ERC continues its route, Borràs chokes on the gradualism of ERC (without having an alternative), and Puigdemont has seen that if Aragonès is the legitimate president, because Junts is in the Govern, his role as authentic legitimate president (ceased by the 155 ) was dissolving like a sugar cube. On the other hand, he believes, if Junts breaks and proclaims that ERC has been sold to the PSOE for a bad mess of pottage, things would move and ERC would be stopped. nor to Junqueras nor to Martha Rovira they are interested in being accused of “botiflers” against the independentist bases. Like any two Icetas.
That is why Puigdemont and two of his men (Albert Batet i Puignero) mounted against Puigdemont the confidence motion trap. But ERC -there are no visible divisions there- turned around and stopped Puigdemont’s maneuver, which had already had the noise of the ANC in the 9/11 demonstration.
Puigdemont’s policy has no future because it is not wanting to admit that the independence promised in 2015 (within 18 months) ended in 155 and the prison and sentence (later pardon), or exile, of the leaders of 2017. This Friday Puigdemont prevailed and humiliated to the ‘consellers’ and mayors, but in the medium term the realists will weigh again. Or split off Time to time.
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How will it be read in Madrid this October 7? Pedro Sánchez is not at his best, but Feijóo should rethink a lot. The campaign of the PP against the Statute of 2006 made the independence movement emerge. Then he joined it to prepare the 2017 DUI. Now, the dialogue (almost sterile between those who want the opposite), the pardons and some gestures (with costs), have helped the internal disputes of separatism explode with force and blow up the pact which has kept them in the Generalitat for 10 years.
To be continue.