Fragmented search for a state
Disunity among the parties in favour of independence means they will field six separate candidate lists in the Catalan parliamentary election on May 12
The separate candidacies splitting the vote expose the inability to unite around the common cause and is another step backwards
Far from practising what they preach, the “unity” that most in the independence movement call for is further away than ever. In the Catalan parliamentary election on May 12, there will be six different competing candidate lists that support Catalonia’s independence: ERC, Junts, CUP, National Front of Catalonia, Catalan Alliance and Alhora. These last two, under Sílvia Orriols and Clara Ponsatí, respectively, are parties making their debut, while the other four all stood last time in February 2021, alongside four other minor pro-independence parties that are now either defunct or not participating this time round.
At that time, during the pandemic and with a turnout that barely exceeded 50%, the pro-independence candidates combined got just over 51% of the vote, generously rounded up to 52%. In that election, the cracks began to show. For example, as the Junts candidate, Carles Puigdemont, never tires of pointing out, the 77,000 votes for PDeCAT did not add a single pro-independence seat in parliament but would have allowed his party to stand up to ERC in their struggle for leadership of the bloc. This turned out to be political fiction, because prominent PDeCAT leaders, such as former minister Andreu Mas-Colell, have given their support to the Catalan president and ERC candidate, Pere Aragonès.
Puigdemont – who has kept on board many of the minority parties — warns that since Junts has made Pedro Sánchez prime minister and has fully embarked on the path of negotiation, that something similar could happen on May 12 as happened in 2021, with potential voters choosing the new party of his former fellow MEP, Ponsatí or even the far right National Front of Catalonia or Catalan Alliance, which is the result of another split from his party. As for the left, it has not suffered any divisions of this type and ERC and CUP remain the two largest and only representatives of this side of the pro-independence ideological spectrum.
The May 12 election will act as a new litmus test for the pro-independence bloc. The separate candidacies splitting the vote expose the inability to unite around the common cause and is another step backwards for a movement already on the decline, according to all the polls. This could even be the decisive moment when we see the bloc lose its overall majority in parliament, which would undoubtedly dictate the direction the country will take next: whether the talks with the Spanish government are enough to keeps the sovereignty process alive, whether support for unilateralism is reignited or buried for good, which PSC has vowed to do if it gets into government. The difference between one majority or another could be decided by relatively few votes, which could give the minority pro-independence parties more say this time round. It is the voters who will have the final say.
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Aiming to capitalise on work it has done in government
Following the agreement with Junts and CUP to invest Pere Aragonès as president, Esquerra has governed in Catalonia for the last three years, half of them alone after Junts decided to leave the executive claiming ERC had diluted the agreed pro-independence roadmap too much. Now it is precisely the work that this government has carried out, in addition to its experience, that ERC is focusing on in its 12-M campaign. The Republicans began their first term at the head of the government since the Second Republic by proposing four major transformations – democratic, green, feminist and social – and claiming several achievements, the main ones being: free pre-schooling for 2-year-olds, a policy of reindustrialisation and a low level of unemployment, improved public services, advances of the Catalan language in the audiovisual sector, the creation of a public energy company and pioneering policies providing attention to women. However, the opposition has highlighted, among others, this government’s failures in drought management, poor educational results in the PISA report and open conflicts with health sector officials and in prisons, proving that the advantage of being in government can be a double-edged sword.
Standing as representatives of a “pragmatic” independence movement, a reputation they hope will also attract voters close to PSC and Catalunya en Comú, the disappointing results of the last two elections and unfavourable recent polls have meant that, contrary to common practice, ERC and president Aragonès have been the ones who have proposed an electoral debate with the other two major candidates on 12-M, Salvador Illa and Carles Puigdemont. This is probably also why ERC has designed a campaign - under the slogan “Side by side with the people, side by side with Catalonia” - that has proposals for Catalonia as a whole at the forefront, with the aim of distancing itself from its two great electoral rivals, whom it accuses, respectively, of pivoting around Spain and around a single figure, that of the president in exile.
Even if the mathematics make it possible, it is hard to imagine a renewal of the independence alliance with Junts, given ERC’s criticism of Puigdemont for presenting empty projects for day-to-day life in Catalonia. And it is equally or more difficult to see a three-party coalition, since ERC have already said they will not make Illa president under any circumstances. Indeed, they oppose PSC in the three main axes on which they want to base the next legislature – a demand for an agreed referendum, for financing that reverses the Spanish fiscal deficit with Catalonia and the further empowerment of Catalan.
Push to become main pro-sovereignty party The pro-sovereignty centre party
Led by lawyer and former Catalan minister Germà Gordó, the party has several names on its candidate list that reveal the party’s commitment to be spokespersons for the problems of the rural world, including lawyer and agrarian trade unionist Cecília Castelló. It is presenting itself in these elections as the party of “sovereignty, order and the centre”.
Resisting amid the ERC-Puigdemont struggle and poor electoral results
Junts are once again placing their trust in the leadership of Carles Puigdemont, with the former president in exile himself announcing that if he does not win he will retire from the political frontline. With the expected entry into force of the amnesty law, Puigdemont’s commitment to leadership and electoral pull is reinforced on this occasion by the possibility of a return to Catalonia after seven years in exile, and therefore of finishing the work that began with the holding of the 1-O referendum. Although the ideal scenario for Junts is to beat PSC in the election and repeat a pro-independence majority with ERC and CUP, the real goal is more pragmatic. And Puigdemont already implicitly revealed this before the campaign officially began: to win more seats than ERC and regain the presidency, albeit with a “simple majority” of the pro-independence movement. That is, to resolve the current tied status of ERC having 33 seats and Junts 32 – or the 34 for Junts and 32 for ERC in 2017. Puigdemont had one aim when denouncing that this technical tie has generated division and prevented pro-independence unity and claiming himself as the guarantor of unity (while accusing ERC of not wanting it): to unite the pro-independence vote that allowed him to narrowly overcome ERC at the expense of the poor result of CUP, as in 2017.
This unity was symbolised in Perpignan with the Vernet Agreement, the electoral pact that integrates within Junts+ Puigdemont per Catalunya the minority organisations of Demòcrates, Moviment d’Esquerres (MES), Estat Català, Reagrupament, Alternativa Verda, Acció per la República and Joventut Republicana de Lleida.
The main obstacle facing Puigdemont’s candidacy is a loss of votes to other parties, as evidenced by the results of PDeCAT in 2021. That party’s 77,000 votes did not give it access to Parliament, but it did prevent Junts from winning more votes and seats than ERC. PDeCAT is no longer part of the equation, but the diversity of pro-independence acronyms running in this election is detrimental to Junts. Alhora, headed by former Junts MEP and minister Clara Ponsatí, has much less potential, while Convergents has some support in Tarragona. But above all, the far-right Aliança Catalana and FNC can make more of a niche among Junts voters than those of ERC and CUP. Probably for this reason, and unusually for them, Junts have made some public pronouncements on immigration.
As for the organisation and campaign schedule, all public events will be held in Northern Catalonia, in southern France, where Puigdemont has moved to be as close as possible to Catalonia, given that the arrest warrant issued against him for the October 1 referendum remains in force.
CUP has suffered two collapses – in the municipal and Spanish elections – that ended up with strategic and organisational change in the party, known as the Garbí Process. The results of 2017 showed how difficult it is for CUP when the narrative of choice in the pro-independence movement is between Puigdemont and ERC. In the municipal elections, CUP lost 40,000 votes, and despite winning in Girona for the first time in its history, PSC’s recovery of the mayorship in the other three Catalan capitals symbolised the end of the phase that began prior to the 1-O referendum. In the last Spanish elections, CUP was left with no MPs after 40% of its rank and file refused to run, and now it has had to prepare for these elections in just a few weeks.
The other party on the far right
The far-right Front Nacional de Catalunya (FNC) has managed to collect the necessary signatures to stand in all constituencies except Girona. In the last Catalan elections, the party obtained 5,000 votes, and in the municipal elections it even had two councillors in Manresa, in addition to winning the mayorship in La Masó, Alt Camp.
Far right knocking on the door
The far-right party Aliança Catalana is addressing three aspects of Catalan politics that have generated much disappointment and anger: feelings of frustration over the independence process; immigration; and the socioeconomic context caused by the crises that Catalan society has suffered since 2008 and which are also breeding grounds for far-right ideologies.
Ponsatí and Graupera add element of uncertainty to sovereignty movement
Shortly before these elections were called, the former Junts minister and MEP Clara Ponsatí and the political philosopher Jordi Graupera caused a surprise by announcing the creation of the new pro-independence party Alhora.
The party, which also includes publisher Anna Punsoda, has generated plenty of interest in the short time since it was announced and it adds uncertainty to the electoral results of the pro-independence movement on May 12.
Ponsatí, an independent MP in the 1-O government, went into exile and was an MEP for Junts together with Puigdemont. In a speech that was neither reserved nor cautious, she broke the silence and accused Junts and ERC leaders of having lied with the promise of secession.