After leaving pears on Saturday, the resigners and critics of the leadership of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) will try to force internal elections to renew the leadership of the entity. In a press conference at the Col·legi de Periodistes, in Barcelona, the group critical of the national secretariat and the president Dolors Feliu reiterated this Thursday that their departure is due to a supposed lack of democracy in the association, to "the repeated violation of the internal regime by the permanent committee -a body made up of twelve members of the management to manage the day-to-day- by attributing, according to what they have said, powers that are not its own, and for lack of respect. the table, the dissidents take refuge in article 16 of the statutes of the ANC that allow holding elections to choose new members in the secretariat if a minimum of 5% of the full members request it.
The collective believes that the proposal could coincide with the ordinary general assembly that the ANC plans to hold in May. And if approved by a simple majority among the militants, the elections could be in June or July.
Josep Piñol, one of the members of the Assemblea who resigned on Saturday, has clarified that at the rate of that percentage of 5% some 2,000 signatures should be collected. "We ask for a remodeling of the permanent committee so that it reflects the diversity of the secretariat," Piñol remarked.
However, the resigners have wanted to emphasize that the debate on the civic list that the Assembly wants to forge to compete in the next elections to the Parliament has not been the main reason for the schism. In fact, they are also committed to creating that candidacy, although they demand a more relaxed analysis and prioritize that this list unite all the pro-independence forces -including the parties- over placing a fourth pro-independence list in the electoral race.
Critics have avoided directly calling for Feliu's removal. As they say, statutorily it is not possible to request it for the four organic positions of the Assembly (presidency, vice-presidency, secretary and treasury). "This is not about names," however Joan Carles Manzanero, another of the resigners, has insisted.
Piñol has also explained that "five years after the proclamation of the republic, a broad perspective of the roadmap is needed" and not focus on a specific point, referring to the creation of this civic list.
Thus, Indesinenter proposes a "crescendo of mobilization campaigns that give the Catalan people the ability to paralyze the country, not for a day, but for weeks if necessary." For the collective, this strategy is essential to face "a new attack" against the State with the civic list as a banner. The group has reiterated that forming it to two, foreseeably two years from the Parliamentary elections, is a mistake and that, on the other hand, elections such as those of the Senate could function as a test bench, because they are the only ones where voters vote for people and not parties.
Last Saturday there were 25 members of the secretariat attached to this group who requested the remodeling of the permanent committee. Thirteen of them resigned. The rest remained part of the critics' strategy to achieve their goals. At the end of the press conference, Jordi Pesarrodona, who resigned as vice president of the ANC despite remaining in the secretariat, announced that he was joining the group.
