The PSC has taken the first step for Salvador Illa to officially take over the reins of Catalan socialism within a few weeks. The party’s electoral authority appointed Illa “first elected secretary” on Wednesday, before the December congress consecrated him as head of the party. The current first secretary, Miquel Iceta, is one of the leaders who have already given him their support, and so have the previous leaders of the formation Raimon Obiols, Narcís Serra, José Montilla and Pere Navarro.
There is no doubt that Illa will become the new first secretary of the PSC in the conclave on December 18 and 19: there is no other candidate. With him as the headliner in the last elections to Parliament, the Catalan Socialists took a leap that allowed them move from the fourth position to the first. However, after the renewal of the independence pact, the electoral victory did not help Illa to become ‘president’.
Objective: to govern Catalonia
In a letter sent to the members of the PSC, Illa sets himself the next objective of governing Catalonia. “We are prepared to do it and we will do it with a strong, solid party, fully committed to the social democratic ideology, reaffirming its commitment to Catalonia, Spain and Europe, speaking to the whole of Catalonia, and not just to a part“, he assures.
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The first elected secretary insists in the letter on the ideas that he has been repeating since before the elections: that Catalonia “has been away for too long for what it has to be” because of the “wrong priorities” of the independence movement; that it is necessary “to work for the reunion of the Catalans and to regain the strength and unity of Catalonia”; and that Catalonia “has lost a decade entangled in sterile identity discussions and the war of flags”.
In this situation, Illa offers the PSC as a “meeting point” that it is called to have a “fundamental role” in the years to come, which augurs differently from the last decade. “A few years, without sides or blocs, in which good government, dialogue and economic progress will be the fuel for the industrial, social and civic engine that Catalonia has historically represented,” says the socialist leader in the letter.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com