Whatever happens at the congress that Junts per Catalunya will hold on June 4, Jordi Turull Y Laura Borras They will be, in one position or another, the key figures of the formation for the future, in a context of renewal of teams in the Carles Puigdemont match. The ‘ex-president’ has decided to hand over the baton to the presidency, following in the footsteps of the still general secretary, Jordi Sànchez.
These are the similarities and differences between a ‘former minister’ of convergent origin and long political career, and a president of Parliament with a shorter but intense political curriculum.
Jordi Turull (Parets, 1966) has gone, parallel to the evolution of the ‘procés’, from defending the official theses of Convergència to proclaim the need to take action again, as was done on 1-O, to achieve independence of Catalonia. Its ideological space has always been the one that CiU officially marked at the time, then the PDECat and, finally, Junts. In other words, he defended the labor reform of the PP government that CiU supported, just as he now defends the position of Junts based on the almost frontal rejection of the policies of the central Executive. As for the ‘procés’, after spending time in jail after being sentenced to 12 years and later pardoned by the Government of Pedro Sanchez, has maintained a forceful speech: “I have not asked for forgiveness”. He proclaims the need for independence unit to retake the initiative and achieve independence through “action”, which will entail sacrifices, and without ruling out the one-sidedness Sooner than later.
Laura Borras (Barcelona, 1970) has always proclaimed herself “daughter of 1-O” outside the parties and has based her speech on the need to exercise self-determination. She campaigned she promised to “activate” the declaration of independence if he won the elections. Speech similar to that of Turull, who promises to “complete” that “mandate.” Borràs has shown his rejection of Junts’ pact with the PSC in the Barcelona Provincial Council and has signed without hesitation in favor of blocking any agreement with the socialists. She, as president of the Parliament, promised, in her inaugural speech, that no Spanish institution, political or judicial, would commit “interference” on the sovereignty of the Catalan Chamber, but months later, in the ‘Juvilla case’, complied with the removal of the seat to the deputy by court order. Ideologically, he has not gotten too wet and in the campaign he avoided specifying his position on issues such as taxation or labor policy.
His independence discourse is similar despite very different political trajectories
Turull comes from party politics and is known for being a appliance man. He started in the CDC youth, he was a councilman in his city (Walls of the Valleys), was a deputy in the Barcelona Provincial Council, held an institutional position (in the Institut Català del Voluntariat) as early as 1996, and in the party he went from the regional leadership to commanding the Parliament group. After passing through the PDECat, he joined Junts. He has not departed from official script, despite the fact that he has experienced moments of great anxiety: when he was not chosen to lead the PDECat or when he failed to be sworn in as president of the Generalitat because the CUP did not support him the day before he entered prison. He has always kept internal fidelity despite the fact that he was clear at a certain moment about the need for a thorough change in the formation. And in the ‘procés’, he formed part of the hard core that succeeded the ‘consellers’ who, like Neus Munte in Presidency, they left the Government shortly before 1-O in disagreement with what was going to be carried out.
Borràs does not come from party politics and makes a show of it. His trajectory moved in the academic world. He led the Institution of Catalan Letters and his career has been meteoric in a few years: from Minister of Culture she became a candidate for Junts per Catalunya in the general elections. She did not get a very favorable result and, after that, she returned to Catalan politics as a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat. After achieving third position, she decided not to opt to be part of the Government of Pere Aragones, from ERC, and was elected president of Parliament with the support of the Republicans. She is an expert in literary theory and comparative literature. On a political level, she has defended independence unity and has always opted for the positions of Puigdemont and the ‘ex-president’ Quim Torra.
Turull has the resounding support of a large part of the positions in the party and in the Government, as shown by the manifesto in his favor made public on May 3, coinciding with Puigdemont’s step back. The former leader of the CDC already had a core of positions in the Generalitat and the party that supported him as a future leader to the detriment of the current secretary general, jordi sanchez. These are charges from the CDC, such as Joseph Rull, Damia Calvet either Meritxell Budoamong others, as well as party figures dissatisfied with Sànchez who consider him the ideal person to bring order to the party.
Borràs has surrounded himself with a group of faithful in Parliament and has the unconditional support of the ‘ex-president’ Quim Torra. All of them praise the president for being on the sidelines of the parties to go to the end in her pro-independence postulates. Among the party’s bases, in all the acts in which she participates – which are many – she achieves gestures of enthusiasm and fervor, which leads her and those around her to blindly trust in winning all the games against the devices of the matches. In the face of her support, Borràs has weighty detractors, who admit the pull that she has as an electoral poster but reproach her for personalism, lack of coherence and political thickness.
The ‘exconseller’ has always been a party man and the president of the Parliament vindicates his personalism
Turull’s weak point, according to some Junts officials, is its clearly convergent past -in a party that today precisely claims to go beyond the previous political acronyms- and the fact, for example, that accompanied Oriol Pujol to testify before the judge for an ‘ITV case’, which ended in conviction for illegal commissions.
Borràs’s Achilles’ heel is that he has pending a trial for embezzlement, related to his time at the head of the Institution of Catalan Letters. She links the case to the state “repression”but internally it is taken into account that a possible sentence could truncate his career or, from the outset, limit it.