In the first count of damages in Junts after the conviction of Laura Borràs, the balance, on the inside flank, is better than expected. In a space in which polyphony was common until recently, there has been hardly any public noise apart from the opinions of the president of the Guarantees commission, Magda Oranich, and the counterattack of some district and local executives of the party with leaders similar to Borràs who have asked for the head of the lawyer.
Another song is what happens beyond the perimeter of JxCat. The rest of the political formations have found in the sentence an element of wear and tear two months before the municipal elections in May, and that causes fear in some party cadres, especially due to the affectation that it may have in large cities and in squares. important as Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.
"Even if you don't move, reality does move around you," points out a party leader from the pragmatic sector who believes that Borràs should have been forced to resign as soon as the sentence was known so as not to fuel the attacks that are now receive. "We would have killed the issue in 24 hours," he adds. But that option was ruled out for fear that the situation would cause disagreements and have consequences for the electoral campaign and the results of May 28.
This leader warns that now the rest "is going to use this issue to wear down" Junts and predicts that "there will be more and more pressure." Still, he points out that in small municipalities they probably won't pay any price, although they may lose votes in big cities. “It is not a personal matter. It is a political issue and what is going well or badly for the party ... it is evident that the president affects us ”, he concludes.
Another representative of that area of the party now regrets not having acted before. “We should have gotten rid of Borràs much sooner and we should not have accepted David Torrents and his people who were left out of the executive in the congressional votes,” he affirms. "She lives in a parallel reality and will drag us all to the cliff," justifies this member of the leadership, who believes that the formula of the general secretary, "temporize and balance so that there is no noise and instability before the municipal elections," it also carries risks. "If this wave, which can affect the game, is not measured well, it can take us ahead of us," he considers. But, for the moment, he resigns himself: "We have to measure the times and now we have no choice but to grit our teeth and endure."
“After May 28, something will have to be done. If nothing happens, there is a risk that the general secretary will not like the Borràs sector and neither will his own”, adds this leader, who sees the municipal elections in May as a crucial appointment to give the party one direction or another. His recipe, if there is a good result, is "immediately decide on a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat that is in tune with the one from Madrid." However, in JxCat, this matter will not be addressed until the horizon of Carles Puigdemont is cleared, pending the resolutions of the European justice on his immunity.
That opinion is shared by other party cadres, but the maxim that the leadership has imposed is that there must be "internal peace" for the formation to reach the municipal councils cohesively, and the most possibilistic sector has complied with the guideline. After that contest, the situation could change, although some see it as "difficult" to undo the skein after the general secretary, Jordi Turull, has assured that it is a case of lawfare, something that Oranich has questioned and that in private admit many more. The faces, gestures and silences of some who accompanied Borràs in his appearance at the gates of Parliament on the day of the sentence speak for themselves. "It is even offensive that he puts his cause in the same bag with those of 1-O and the procés," another source concludes.
On June 3, after the elections, the national council, the party's highest decision-making body between congresses, is scheduled to meet. If the results are good, there may be some movement to demand a step back from the president. "I think that if we win or do a good job, the voice will be raised and there will be courage that day," says a member of that body. "Before, everyone loved Borràs, now nobody wants her in her town," says this counselor, a local Junts leader, to illustrate the situation of the party president.
“The candidates want peace, and I want to think that there will be movements after the municipal elections. She will lose weight and she may go away with a push ”, she continues. In any case, she believes that "all this needs her time" and she predicts that she "with a little luck or with a push she will fall under her own weight." Likewise, she points out that she is "embarrassed that she says that some irregularities that began in 2013 are lawfare."
But there is also a candidate who, without identifying with what the president of Junts represents, wants her to attend her events, even if the situation is "uncomfortable and abnormal." "I feel more identified with Xavier Trias and I come from Convergència, but Borràs continues to have a pull among some pro-independence sectors," she explains. “I wish we didn't have these storms,” she sighs.
