To the polls

Junts pel Sí

Con­vergència (CDC), Es­querra Re­pub­li­cana (ERC) and the main civic or­gan­i­sa­tions sup­port­ing in­de­pen­dence to­gether make up this elec­toral list headed by for­mer MEP, Raül Romeva. The aim of the can­di­dacy is to re­duce the elec­tions to the sin­gle issue of in­de­pen­dence, with vic­tory pro­vid­ing the de­mo­c­ra­tic le­git­i­macy re­quired to begin a process of se­ces­sion that could take up to 18 months to com­plete. The idea is to form a na­tional unity gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the elec­tions that will begin to set up state struc­tures, while a nom­i­nal de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence would an­nounce Cat­alo­nia's in­ten­tions to the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity. Once the process of se­ces­sion is com­plete, con­stituent elec­tions would then be held with the par­ties stand­ing on their own. CDC and ERC have al­ready agreed that Artur Mas would con­tinue as pres­i­dent, al­though cer­tain state­ments made by Romeva have cast doubt on this sce­nario. What's more, it is still not known whether the CUP party will back Mas as pres­i­dent, de­spite the sov­er­eign­tists pledg­ing co­op­er­a­tion with their fel­low sup­port­ers of in­de­pen­dence on the Junts pel Sí list. Be­hind Romeva on the list is for­mer ANC pres­i­dent Carme For­cadell, Òmnium Cul­tural pres­i­dent Muriel Casals, with CDC and ERC lead­ers Mas and Oriol Jun­queras, fol­lowed by a num­ber of pub­lic fig­ures and celebri­ties, such as Lluís Llach and Germà Bel. The agree­ment that led to the Junts pel Sí can­di­dacy was un­ex­pected, as it looked as if Mas and Jun­queras would be in­ca­pable of putting their par­ti­san in­ter­ests to one side for the sake of cross-party sup­port for in­de­pen­dence.

CUP

De­spite being a key el­e­ment in the cross-party talks that led to the Junts pel Sí can­di­dacy, CUP has de­cided to stand alone in the elec­tions, al­beit also on a sov­er­eignty plat­form. An­to­nio Baños is the can­di­date that tops the CUP elec­toral list, sup­port for which the party hopes will in­crease their seats from the three they cur­rently have in the Cata­lan par­lia­ment. Baños has his work cut out sub­sti­tut­ing the pop­u­lar fig­ure of David Fernàndez, al­though CUP's mes­sage will con­tinue to stress the need for so­cial change as part of a new state. It is for this rea­son that the party puts as much em­pha­sis on the con­stituent elec­tions set to fol­low any de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence as those on Sep­tem­ber 27. One of the un­knowns is whether CUP can at­tract votes away from the Sí que es Pot group by pro­vid­ing a le­git­i­mate left­wing al­ter­na­tive.

Sí que es Pot

fter the suc­cess of the coali­tion headed by Ada Colau in Barcelona and Manuela Car­mena in Madrid in May's local elec­tions, Podemos has joined forces with ICV and EUiA to pro­vide an al­ter­na­tive coali­tion force to the Junts pel Sí group. Top­ping the list is the vet­eran ac­tivist Lluís Ra­bell, pres­i­dent of the Fed­eració d'As­so­cia­cions de Veïns de Barcelona, al­though the name of Procés Con­stituent's Ar­cadi Oliveres has also come up. Sí que es Pot pre­sents it­self as a left­wing al­ter­na­tive to the Mas gov­ern­ment and holds that the 27-S elec­tions are not a ref­er­en­dum on sov­er­eignty but rather a strug­gle be­tween the es­tab­lished po­lit­i­cal pow­ers -who they blame for the cuts- and the work­ing class. As for the right to de­cide issue, the left­wing coali­tion favours a ref­er­en­dum agreed with the Span­ish gov­ern­ment, which it claims the ma­jor­ity of the pub­lic –more than 80%– also sup­port. How­ever, Ra­bell does not have the same charisma as Colau, which could prove to be a hand­i­cap.

PSC

One of the tra­di­tional po­lit­i­cal forces of Cata­lan pol­i­tics, the so­cial­ists will just be hop­ing to get through these elec­tions in one piece, al­though they also trust in leader Miquel Iceta's pro­file and ex­pe­ri­ence to win them back some sup­port. Within the con­text of the process, PSC favours con­sti­tu­tional re­form to im­prove re­la­tions be­tween Cat­alo­nia and the state and pre­dicts that vic­tory for Pedro Sánchez in the up­com­ing gen­eral elec­tions will rad­i­cally change the whole sit­u­a­tion.

Un­like in 2012, PSC's elec­toral pro­gramme has no ref­er­ence to sup­port a ref­er­en­dum agreed with the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. At the be­gin­ning of Au­gust, in a let­ter to ac­tivists, Iceta out­lined some of the party's aims dur­ing the cam­paign: “We want a bet­ter Cat­alo­nia, ca­pa­ble of strength­en­ing self-gov­ern­ment, of pro­mot­ing our plural iden­tity, as the Cata­lan lan­guage and cul­ture are trea­sures to pre­serve and pro­mote, and of de­fend­ing our eco­nomic in­ter­ests and our nat­ural her­itage.”

Unió

One con­se­quence of the in­de­pen­dence process was the break-up of the CiU coali­tion, with Unió and Con­vergència going their sep­a­rate ways. Unió will now stand alone for the first time, on a ticket of “com­mon sense” (seny) as a coun­ter­weight to the Junts pel Sí op­tion. While the party is led by Josep An­toni Duran i Lleida, for­mer Cata­lan in­te­rior min­is­ter, Ramon Es­padaler, will be the vis­i­ble party head dur­ing the cam­paign, pro­mot­ing an ar­gu­ment that fo­cuses on “di­a­logue” with the state to re­solve the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal im­passe. Es­padaler, who will stand with for­mer head Cata­lan pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor, Martín Rodríguez-Sol, has al­ready said that he will not back any pres­i­dent in favour of “in­de­pen­dence”, in other words, Mas. UDC's aim is to achieve its own group in the Cata­lan par­lia­ment –re­quir­ing a min­i­mum of five seats– in order to have a say in the coun­try's po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

PP

The Par­tit Pop­u­lar has opted for for­mer Badalona mayor Xavier García Al­biol in­stead of Alícia Sánchez-Ca­ma­cho to spear­head its can­di­dacy, and the party hopes it can defy ex­pec­ta­tions of be­com­ing mar­gin­alised as a force in Cata­lan pol­i­tics. How­ever, the change to García Al­biol means the Cata­lan branch of Mar­i­ano Rajoy's party has made a sig­nif­i­cant shift fur­ther to the right. García Al­biol is not one to hold his tongue when it comes to del­i­cate so­cial is­sues, often over­step­ping the mark and at­tract­ing ac­cu­sa­tions of xeno­pho­bia and racism dur­ing his time in charge of Badalona. Above all, PP hopes to stop the rise of Ciu­tadans with a hard­line union­ist stance, while re­fus­ing to even ac­cept the plebiscite claims for the 27-S elec­tions. Yet, the choice of García Al­biol sug­gests that the party does recog­nise the threat posed by the sov­er­eignty move­ment in choos­ing a can­di­date that has pub­licly spo­ken against in­de­pen­dence.

Ciu­tadans

While party leader Al­bert Rivera fo­cuses on Madrid and will not stand in the Cata­lan elec­tions, his place has been taken by debu­tant Inés Ar­ri­madas, who it is hoped can pro­vide a fresh young face to the party's cam­paign, much in the same way as Rivera him­self did back in 2006. Ciu­tadans hope to dis­place PP in Cata­lan pol­i­tics, al­though the party has also hinted at the pos­si­bil­ity of work­ing with PP and PSC to pre­vent the in­de­pen­dence par­ties from gov­ern­ing.