Despite the political border that separates them, the PP is trying to get closer to the socialist electorate that views with suspicion the rising prominence of former president Carles Puigdemont since the start of this term. A return to the political center stage thanks to his role in the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez and the drafting of the Amnesty Law. In this third week of pre-campaign, the popular have launched an initiative aimed at the socialist voter who, “loyal to his ideas,” may be uncomfortable and feel “betrayed” with the role given from the socialist ranks to the Junts candidate.
The Popular Party's campaign strategy is aimed at what is considered the broad-based constitutionalist vote, where it looks above all at those voters who in the last elections switched from voting for Ciudadanos to the PSC. The campaign presented today – with a video also on the networks – plays with the idea of “mirrors”, where they want to raise the misunderstanding between the socialists and Carles Puigdemont. The number two candidate and mayor of Castelldefels, Manu Reyes, has thus indicated that what is being resolved on 12-M is a “change of model.”
The popular ones insist on this comparison between the projects of Salvador Illa, Pere Aragonès and Carles Puigdemont. Not only, according to the explanations of Manu Reyes, in what refers to the “continuity of the process” but also to the definition of a social and economic model. The popular ones have highlighted security, education, fiscal policy, waiting lists, among other issues, among the main issues of the campaign, and consider that their management proposal is the one that can put an end to the “inaction” in which Catalonia has plunged into the decade of the process.
In this “mirror of reality” that they have presented today, they want to indicate that the person who appears to the socialist voter when thinking about the next 12-M is the figure of the leader of Junts. Reyes has indicated that supporting the PSC is “guaranteeing the return of Puigdemont”
The PP spokesperson in Spain, Borja Sémper, has also spoken along these lines, stressing that “voting for the PSC means elevating Puigdemont.” And in a Basque electoral key, he has indicated in reference to the PNV that “supporting this formation is empowering Sánchez and whitewashing Bildu.”
The popular Catalans continue, for now, with a temperate campaign, based on their positions on the major debates around the process, and especially around the Amnesty Law, which have been and are being fought in Congress and in the Senate, they are already well known in the Catalan electorate. Tomorrow Alberto Núñez Feijóo will be in Tarragona, and on Wednesday in Girona.
