Junts sectors intensify internal debate to unify strategy

The umpteenth discrepancy between Together for Catalonia (JxCat) and Republican Left, this time on account of the Catalan budgets, has once again exposed what sectors of the ‘expresident’ party already explain openly: the need to convene a pending debate, that of the strategic course that a party that is divided should take between two souls, the one who defends that it is time to prioritize the management in the Government and the one that raises the flag of confrontation first of all.

“The debate is pending, yes, but it is being done and it has not finished”, affirms a leader, who is hopeful that Junts will achieve “make autonomy management compatible with intelligent confrontationHaving said that, he admits that, today, the internal discussion is “hot.”

The epicenter of the budget crisis was the speech of the always vehement deputy Joan Canadell in the Parliament, charging against ERC and the ‘president’, Pere Aragonès, for the agreement with the ‘comuns’ to save the accounts. But, as confirmed by different sources, Canadell was not going free. His message was endorsed by the decision of the vast majority of the party leaders previously meeting. Except for some exceptions. A posteriori there have been internal lamentations. “It was agreed, yes, but there are ways and means to execute it,” several of those consulted lament.

Aragonès, a “spoiled child”

Others, the most supportive of the confrontation, believe that the approval of the budgets with the ‘comuns’ costs a lot to assimilate in the independence movement. They claim that Together He has a problem with the story because he must make it clear that these were accounts aimed at achieving independence, thus forcing the ‘comuns’ to admit it. The most radical, even, did not rule out the possibility of extending the budget rather than offering the image that the hosts of Ada Colau they have managed to fracture the independence bloc.

But the pragmatists, the defenders of a good performance in the Government without rhetorical pirouettes, value the need to appear as a useful party. “We have to take advantage of what happened with the budgets to put order“, points out a member of the Executive Council, convinced that the path passes through good governance, being on all fronts and, from there, being able to denounce the eventual resignations of ERC regarding the confrontation with the State. According to another member of the Cabinet, of forcing the contradictions of Esquerra from within, because the republicans do not have an alternative partner to govern in this legislature.

“It is still difficult for us to understand that ERC is in charge”

“We have not come to understand, and it will cost us, that the person in charge is ERC. The day we understand it we will begin not to make according to what ridiculous turns,” diagnoses a charge from the Generalitat. Twists like the change of discourse on budgets. “To end this way [asumiendo el pacto con los ‘comuns]It was not necessary to have done this show … but that’s how we are, “laments a member of the executive.

Another diagnosis, a first cousin of the previous one, is that of the lack of unity of action. “We are the army of Pancho Villa“, describes with humor another member of the management.” There is no single criterion or a leader that brings order, “laments another, who compares this disorder with ERC, which acts” like a real army. “The description is that while the members of the Government roll up their sleeves with European funds, the pandemic and the way out of the crisis, those who have “the seat secured in the Parliament” are more “for blowing everything up“.

“[El ‘expresident’] Puigdemont is not in the day to day and there are a whole people who Jordi Sànchez [el secretario general] does not control, which are the new; compared to those of a lifetime, people of order who know how to maintain discipline “, they describe.

Boost assets

Another pending issue that affects not only Junts, but all the actors involved, is the evidence that the level of unity in the search for independence is equal to zero. “The independence unit has not been broken, simply because it has never existed“, confesses a member of the Executive Council. But that is where in JxCat they believe that there is more room to mark a profile with respect to ERC, whom they see”folded to the interests of the PSOE“and that he has” clearly abandoned the defense of the majority of the 52% of pro-independence votes. “

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Another asset that they want to promote is the attack on the Republicans due to the lack of unity in Madrid. Episodes such as the audiovisual law – with the Government’s commitment to quotas for Catalan on air – reinforce the need to attack Republicans because in Madrid “they do what they want” while Junts does “what can“.

In short, and despite the fact that the existence of crisis committees was highlighted at the national council held in September, the reality is that, as a prominent leader often states, on the internal situation: “We are Junts, not the same“Managing this diversity is the challenge of the Puigdemont training.