He has not given many details on how to do it, but Oriol Junqueras has set himself this Monday as an objective to combat abstention. Esquerra has left 300,000 votes so far from 2019 to 2023 and understands that it has been a certain indolence of the pro-independence electorate that has caused the disaster in these municipalities. With this precedent, the last thing the Republicans want is for the general elections that Pedro Sánchez has announced for July 23 to become a kind of second round of the independence abstention. And they have already set to work.
Beyond claiming to "recompose the independence consensus" and establishing his party as "the best antidote" for independence and progressive against the "conservative wave" of the right and the extreme right, Junqueras has not delved into how he plans to mobilize.
But the generals are elections to which a part of the independence movement says they do not feel challenged. That worries Esquerra. Even so, in the last two calls, those of April 28 and November 10, 2019, the movement reached records, with 39% and 42% of the vote in Catalonia, respectively. It was an exceptional year, with the ballot boxes at the polling stations when the trial for 1-O was held, first, and when the Supreme Court ruling was announced, later. However, in the 2016 congressional elections, in the midst of the sovereignist process, the pro-independence options barely achieved 32%. In December 2015, 31%.
At the ERC headquarters, on Calle Calàbria in Barcelona, the feeling that the pacts with the PSOE in Madrid and with the PSC in Barcelona –mainly due to budgets– have had an impact on the loss of votes is not dominant. "Whether there are budgets or not, we think it is better that there be" to make the resources available to the public, Junqueras has justified. "If something takes a toll on us and the cause is to be useful to people, we will assume the bills that are necessary," he added defiantly.
ERC has a problem mobilizing its potential electorate. "We have not been able to explain ourselves well." The party leader recognized this at the press conference. He has pointed out that the data forces his training to listen to those who opted for them four years ago but this time "they have stayed at home or have abstained." "You have to make an effort to connect with these people," Junqueras stressed while he pointed out that they have "a lot of work to do" before the call for general elections at the end of July. They are forced to act quickly. So much so that he hastened to give the name of what will be the number one ERC candidacy in Congress: Gabriel Rufián. It will be the fifth time that he will form as head of the list in Madrid.
It will be, although in his environment they considered that in the municipal battle Rufián it was played to repeat in Madrid. He has added a councilor in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, where he appeared. It is not a success, far from it, although she has obtained more votes for Esquerra than in 2019. Núria Parlon has removed the same councilors, seventeen, as the previous time and retains an absolute majority. And ERC has lost the vote in the Barcelona metropolitan area.
The blow to ERC this May 28 has resounded. Added to the loss of votes is the impossibility of repeating the mayoralty in Lleida and Tarragona, banners for the last four years of the republican mayoralties. Neither in Figueres or Sant Cugat del Vallès, to give examples. In Girona Esquerra continues to be a minority.
