Thirteen consecutive electoral appointments growing and reaching the maximum levels of power can lead to a problem of managing the electoral expectations of a party. If you also put 3,500 volunteers into circulation knocking on half a million doors in 320 municipalities and the doors open, what can go wrong? The numbers that guide the political action of ERC failed and the electoral result –despite being the first force in councillors– leads to an identity crisis that requires an express damage control operation.
In ERC they went from the perplexity of Sunday night to weaving a response that cauterizes the wound suffered in the long-term strategy of Oriol Junqueras. "We cannot stay still." It is about determining if the 302,000 lost votes are reversible or if the unexpected abstentionism of the Republican voter is the prelude to a change of fate of the pro-independence electorate.
The reading of the results of 28-M cannot be unequivocal and the causes of the fall point to both the party and the Government. Pragmatic independence and the managerial presidency are part of the road map that led the republicans to the Palau de la Generalitat. They got rid of the "noise" with the departure of the Junts del Government and opted for an Executive Council that put faces to the "entire Catalonia" that Pere Aragonès claims. But neither the presidential figure nor the Government's actions alone generate votes.
ERC raised 28-M as a one-on-one with the PSC, but the first campaign rally ended with Junqueras attacking Junts. The Socialists had started with several bodies away and the scarecrow of corruption does not make a dent but quite the opposite. Junqueras invoked the Mercurio case and Marta Farrés achieved an absolute majority; she marked Núria Parlon as heir to the Pretoria case and she reached 51.3% of the votes in Santa Coloma de Gramenet despite the “Ruffian effect”. And in L'Hospitalet, the problem now is the right, not Esquerra. ERC took care of the pact with the PSC in Sant Cugat, and Junts won…
The paradoxes accumulate. ERC suffers on the independence front but wins in the most radical regional strongholds such as Osona and Ripollès; Junts resists and its most notorious victories are recorded in Barcelona, Sant Cugat, Igualada or Martorell (with 65% of the votes!), where the candidates are most convergent; and the great bell of the CUP is located in Girona with the least cupero project. Alarm bells have gone off among historic Republicans. "People have warned." And the quick response for 23-J goes from the repeated "broadening the base" to trying to mobilize the usual pro-independence vote.
The wild card is the “unit”. The joint list proposed by Junts is impossible, but the blow to the ERC at the polls has erased the “13 to 4” with which the Republicans ruled out the unity of action of both parties in Congress. For the first time, there is a shared diagnosis: the Cainite battle penalizes the independence formations. However, the inability to formulate joint proposals in a scenario of electoral competition paralyzes them. Junts now aspires to the sorpasso in the generals or, at least, to be decisive in an investiture. Aragonès's intention is to try a minimum programmatic agreement in two weeks and, in the medium term, set the bases for coordinated action before a PP-Vox government. If there is consensus, it will not be to guarantee the stability of the Catalan government with ERC in a minority. And come back... In Junts, "nobody remembers the departure of the Government anymore."
How is that front managed in Madrid? The animosity between Gabriel Rufián and Míriam Nogueras, candidates in pectore, is public and published. The Junts list is yet to be discovered – the PDCat falls out of the equation – while the ERC is looking for a complementary profile for Rufián. The current spokesman in Congress will be the speaker of the "anti-fascist epic" to compete with the PSC, but it is not enough to prop up the vote in defense of Catalonia against Junts. And committed to the vote with a hypothetical investiture of Pedro Sánchez – "Neither actively nor passively we will facilitate a government with the extreme right" – what can you ask for in return? ERC has based its relationship with the PSOE on resolving the situation of those convicted and prosecuted for 1-O, and now?... Perhaps a clear agreement for a referendum.
