Catalan President Torra and ERC former MP Tardà stage a new clash among govern partners

26.05.2020 09:54 h. Updated: 26.05.2020 10:06 h.

Quim Torra and Joan Tarda greet each other in an archive image / EFE

The independence idyll of ERC and Junts per Catalunya goes through turbulent times. This is demonstrated by the constant clashes between representatives of both parties, partners in the Govern, either by the management of the crisis of the coronavirus or the future Catalan elections, still undated. The latest exhibition, for now, has featured Joan Tarda and Quim Torra, dialectically dialectically engaged in public, through media and social media.

The ERC Deputy in Congress has published an opinion column in El Periódico in which, among other aspects, he has accused the party of Convergència of “anchoring themselves in the sterile symbolic conflict and consevadurism, ignoring the reality” of Catalonia from the ideological point of view. That is, the fracture between independentists and non-independentists. Allegations that the president have not done well at all, so it is apparent from the reply set out in his personal Twitter profile.

Junqueras is committed to expanding the base

Tardà makes clear his intention from the beginning of his publication, with a title that leaves no room for doubt: “More junquerism and less torrism”. It praises the way Oriol Junqueras works for independence, who seeks “democratic support” through “socially transformative political action”. That is, the expansion of the secessionist base in Catalonia with dialogue. And in contrast, he points to JxCAT — with Torra and his “torrismo” at the helm–, which leaves aside “the perentorial need to achieve a significant advance in popular support in the next election cycle.”

The ERC leader in the lower house criticizes the “worrying and growing disappearance of Catalanism” in the PSC and also the “post-converged nationalist embankment” which, despite sharing with them the independence ideology, decides to “agree [the governance of] the Barcelona Provincial Council with Núria Marín in order to prevent a republican from commanding it”.

Comparison between Torra and Sánchez

Tardà equates to Torra’s politics and the neoconvergents’ politics with that of Pedro Sánchez from the government — which he calls “sanchism” –, by pointing out that both the “obstacles” that prevent “the “unfolding the political action” defended by ERC. In short, this kind of doctrine Junqueras that Tardà exposes would like to ensure that “all Catalan parties, independence or not, feel challenged to work and respect the opposite option and not to block any solution within the framework of an agreement” that leads to a new referendum of self-determination.

This comparison with Sánchez seems to be the point that has hurt Torra the most, given the answer that this column has given through the social network of micro-publications. The president points out that Tardà’s words are “verbal pyrotechnics” and that the equalization between his party’s political performance and those of the PSOE “exceeds the limits” of his imagination. And he ends his tweet with what seems like a ostentation over which of the two is more independent: “I don’t get used to seeing spanish-coded life. Easy, I want independence. What about you?”

https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/politica/torra-tarda-encontronazo-erc-jxcat_351381_102.html