Antonio
Fernandez
03/07/2020 14:06 – Updated: 03/07/2020 21:22
The
nationalist landscape is entangled a little more in Catalonia: PDeCAT critics have decided on Saturday to step forward and
detach themselves from the Waterloo yoke, managed by Carles
Puigdemont, presenting themselves as a new electoral option in upcoming electoral
contests, regardless of post-Convergents of JxCat or La Crida. The rupture is
already a fact: senior PDeCAT officials will continue on their own, abandoning
unilateralism and betting on the reconstruction of the traditional nationalist
political space. They do not yet define whether they will participate as a
party, but they make it clear that they want to be “a new electoral option”
compared to what there is so far. In other words: Puigdemont already has
someone who disputes direct electoral space. And, in parallel, the complete blowing
up of what was once the most important political party in Catalonia,
Convergència Democràtica (CDC), has been consummated.
Last September, high-ranking PDeCAT officials met in the monastery of Poblet (in the same place where Jordi Pujol met for decades with his officers to meditate on political strategy) and laid the foundations for a new way of doing politics. It was the first warning to Carles Puigdemont that something in his machinery does not work. The radicalism imposed by the “ex-president” escaped has left many corpses along the way. A group split from CDC and formed Convergents, with former councilor Germà Gordó in the lead. Another one left and created Lliures, with also former counselor Antoni Fernández Teixidó. Others left for Units per Avançar (the heiress of Unió Democràtica de Catalunya), under the command of former counsellor Ramon Espadaler, tired of playing for the permanent revolution. And others stayed in no man’s land.
Thus, a handful of leaders of the PDeCAT met in Poblet and approved a road map that, without renouncing independence and a referendum agreed with the Spanish State, did expressly renounce unilateralism and permanent conflict with Spain. Among those militants were the CiU ex-speaker in Congress, Carles Campuzano, former MP Jordi Xuclà or former councilor Lluís Recoder. This group also includes the former major of the Parliament, Antoni Bayona. The former coordinator of the party, Marta Pascal was not expected, but she was kept ‘in mind’, because everyone reserves for her to be her public image: she is a woman, she is young, she has her own personality and she had the guts to face Puigdemont when he ordered not to support the vote of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy.
A leader in reserve
That
cost her her position as general coordinator. And now she has just announced
that she is leaving
her senator seat to face a new political challenge. On July 21, 2018, at the Congress Carles Puigdemont
sent messages to his most intimate: “Pascal can never be general coordinator”,
he wrote, sentencing the one who practically was considered party leader.
Publicly, the former escapee swore that he had not intervened in the result of
that failing Congress of the PDeCAT. But the reality was much more cruel and
prosaic: Puigdemont let Marta Pascal drop; she decided to throw in the towel tired
of Waterloo’s interferences. Now, the young politician has her hands free and a road
map not contaminated by Waterloo. And, from this Saturday, an organization that
will be willing to support her unconditionally.
Pascal had not dared until now to take the step of
finally breaking up ties with the PDeCAT. In fact, she is still within that
formation, studying whether she and her group can still redirect the agonizing
party (phagocytized by Puigdemont for the benefit of his other inventions, such
as Junts per Catalunya or Crida a la Solidaridad) and place it again in the first
line of politics. But everything suggests that there will not be such an
opportunity.
Contacts between different groups
With
the creation of this new political space, the problems in Catalan nationalism
have not ended: on the contrary, a stage is opened in which it is necessary to
elucidate how the militant Catalanism will be articulated. In fact, the Poblet
Group, as well as senior positions of the PDeCAT and Units per Avançar (which
in the last three electoral calls participated in coalition with the PSC) have
been in contact for months and permanent conversations with representatives of
Convergents, of Lliures and the Democratic League to study a joint platform
that recomposes a Catalanist center that replaces the old CiU. In fact, Lliures
and Lliga are preparing their merger
by the end of this month and have already made offers to the other groups to agree on a joint
candidacy that does not disperse the citizen vote and attract the famous
300,000 orphan votes that are in Catalanist nationalism since when CiU disappeared.
The common premise of this Catalanist spectrum is the explicit renunciation of
unilateralism, although the independence and negotiation of a referendum agreed
with the Spanish State is not waived.
The document approved this Saturday, under the title ‘Conclusions and synthesis of the work on the support of a political option’, includes the guidelines that Pascal exposes in his book ‘Sense por’ (‘Without fear’), presented this February. No to unilateralism but yes to independence without violating the laws and complying with the norms of democracy. PDeCAT critics do not give up independence, but they want to agree on a referendum with the State. And there they want to propose a reform of the Constitution that recognizes the right to secession. They are also committed to guaranteeing the governability of the institutions: the tactic of ‘the worse, the better’, applied mercilessly by ‘puigdemontismo’ in the last three years is over.
The
spokesman of the group, Antoni Garrell, presented the main lines of the project
after this Saturday’s meeting. He said the candidacy “will be formalized
in the coming weeks”. And he stressed that the offer is “a proposal
open to all who want a Catalonia of understanding”.
The approved document highlights the need to “recover
democratic quality”, bets on a “coexistence agreement” with the rest of Spain
(based on “mutual respect and a position of equality between Catalonia and
Spain while less tense moments come despite the differences and the unresolved
disputes”) and advocates rethinking the political strategy and the path to
independence.
He
also emphasizes that “unilateralism aggravates polarization in Catalonia” and
indicates literally that “we have suffered the suspension of self-government
and cannot risk that it will happen again. Persisting in error will only
increase frustration and perpetuate the vicious circle that currently grips us
in the economic, social and political spheres”. Hence, he claims to “respect
the rules of the democratic and liberal system” and “avoid the persistent
conflict to stop the deterioration of the prestige of the institutions that
represent us”, while asking to “avoid populist and anti-system policies to
defend a project at whatever the price”.
The warning to Puigdemont, then, is clear and direct. It is not good news for the ‘ex-president’ escaped, who sees his leadership eroding a little more, but there is no doubt that it is a new electoral option that can absorb a portion of his electorate. It will be that, as the saying goes, the more we are, the more we will laugh.
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