Esquerra rises in the polls, even if support for independence low, according to the latest survey by the prestigious Institute of Political and Social Sciences (ICPS). It is the paradox that dominates and will dominate Catalan politics during the remainder of the legislature. After six months at the helm of the Generalitat, Esquerra Republicana overtakes his main adversary, the PSC, which took 49,000 votes from him in the last regional elections, and almost doubled in votes to Junts per Catalunya, his great competitor. A result that reveals a change of background in the expectations of many independentistas, since the republicans cannot yet present any balance of their main bet, the dialogue table with the Government that has not yet begun. Esquerra’s electoral progress shows that a significant part of the pro-independence electorate is more aware of things to eat, or the pandemic, or the arrival of European funds, than independence. The punishment that this same electorate inflicts on JxCat is part of the same slide towards realistic positions. It is useless for Vice President Puigneró to claim the convergent gene, seeking agreements with the Government on the airport (a controversial bet), as long as JxCat continues to be associated with the confrontation strategy defended by Carles Puigdemont.
Nor do Republicans dislike, contrary to what one might think, that independence falls below 40% as the preferred option for the first time, while 53% prefer to continue being part of Spain. Understand, it is not that ERC has stopped aspiring for a majority of Catalans to support the creation of a Catalan republic. What happens is that Oriol Junqueras knows perfectly, although he does not say so, that this objective has been postponed ‘ad calendas graecas’, after the failure of the ‘procés’, and that what matters to him, during the long in the meantime that is coming, is to have the majority. The power. To the detriment of his adversary on the left, the PSC, and his rival in the nationalist camp, JxCat, the two formations that can dispute the presidency of the Generalitat. And this is only possible if Esquerra rises in the polls while the irredeemable independence movement shrinks, at least for the moment, leaving the confrontation strategy led by Carles Puigdemont without oxygen.
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Those close to the former president are wrong when they think that pro-independence voters will read the results of the ICPS poll as the result of the surrender of Esquerra. If so, the beneficiaries of this surrender would be JxCat (and the CUP). The survey reflects something more profound, a change in the state of mind of the independence movement after the stagnation of the ‘procés’. When the survey reveals that less than 30% of those surveyed want it to end the independence of Catalonia (the lowest percentage in the last decade), it does not express disenchantment with ERC’s pactist policy, but rather a first awareness about what the strategy of the last decade has hit rock bottom. The data are eloquent: only 8% of those surveyed believe that the ‘procés’ will illuminate a new State for Catalonia. The change in perception is particularly significant among ERC voters, but it also affects Puigdemont’s followers, where those who believe in a happy outcome of ‘procés’ (independence) do not even reach 30%. The ICPS survey seals the end of a linear journey called to culminate, in the approach of its promoters, with the independence of Catalonia. For this reason it was cleverly baptized as a ‘process’, to give the idea of something unstoppable that would add support in Catalonia (with the invaluable help of Mariano Rajoy and Pablo Llarena) until the end was unavoidable. But nevertheless, Rajoy lost the motion of censure, a more sensitive coalition government arrived in plurinational Spain, the prisoners were released from jails and the ‘procés’ ran out of more gasoline than that of Puigdemont’s judicial successes in Europe and the determination of the Supreme Court to keep him alive. The ‘procés’ has died. The meanwhile arrives.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com