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ERC simply tries to adapt to a new scenario in which its main electoral competitor on the left is the PSC

Joaquim Coll

Thursday, 08/01/2019 – 22:36

After the failure of the unilateral route in 2017, and given the impossibility of keeping that promise, ERC leaders instead of talking about independence are resorting to the exaltation of the formula “republic” as a substitute. A good example is the article published last weekend in El Periódico by Roger Torrent, president of the Parliament and possible head of the list when regional elections are called after the more than likely disqualification of Oriol Junqueras.

It is a text empty of content, announcing wishes that are impossible not to share but that will come true when, it is not known how or when, will arrive in that dream republic capable of solving all imaginable problems, from climate change to aging of the population, going through the right to housing or a living wage. “When we talk about the republic we don’t think about armies, hymns or flags. For us, the republic is schools, hospitals, pensions, labor rights and social services. They are, in short, opportunities and hopes”, Torrent writes.

At no precise moment is he speaking of the republic as a form of state, valid anywhere in the world, or of a euphemism of that independence that in 2015 the leaders of ERC promised to achieve in 18 months. If it were the first, he would have to explain why Denmark, Norway and Sweden, often presented as examples of the separatist Ithaca, are parliamentary monarchies like the Spanish one. It is clear that the belief that the republican form of state necessarily entails more advanced social policies has no basis. In reality, the republican verbiage is a refuge from the lack of strategy in the pro-independence side, and a means to attack Felipe VI with the aim of eroding one of the pillars of the 1978 Constitution.

Utopian dreaming

In fact, the exaltation of the formula “republic” is due to the exhaustion of the unilateral rhetoric that moved the ‘procés‘ since 2012, but unable to abandon the utopian reverie, now under the promise of a thousand-wonders republic. The main novelty is that the auction, the radical pulse between the two main independence parties that precipitated the DUI in 2017, has stopped working. Does that make ERC a reliable and moderate party? Absolutely not. Its political performance is still very erratic and it does not hesitate to feed all kinds of falsehoods. Republicans simply try to adapt to a new scenario in which their main electoral competitor on the left, especially in the metropolitan area, is the PSC.

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/opinion/20190801/republica-maravillas-articulo-joaquim-coll-7578895

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