Catalonia goes to the polls today with much more at stake than the winner of the most atypical electoral contest. It is settled in this 14-F, which was about to be adjourned sine die, if the maneuver of Pedro Sanchez to win the Generalitat work or if, on the contrary, secessionism meets the required majority to override an eventual victory of the candidate socialist, Salvador Illa.
Regardless of who is the winner, all the polls point to the fact that ERC will have the key to the governance of Catalonia, being able to choose between reissuing the current separatist Executive with JxCat or opting to orchestrate a tripartite party that has practically already been ruled out before a notary by the Republicans. The bitter differences between the two formations that currently make up the Catalan Government appear as the main obstacle to giving continuity to the Cabinet that led the procés to the cliff of 1-O. An unresolved struggle that could well lead to the political blockade and the repetition of the elections due to the incapacity of Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junquerasto to agree on the course of a separatist cause with no known horizon beyond the liberation of the prisoners.
It would be very plausible that, for the second consecutive time, a constitutionalist force was imposed on the Catalans. Citizens did it in 2017 and a PSC willing and able to absorb up to 30% of the voters of the orange formation could repeat it today. The voter against independence goes to the schools to refocus their support on the candidate with the most options to discuss the victory over separatism a figure that this time embodies the former Minister of Health. If this scenario is repeated, Illa has already warned that he will opt for the investiture contrary to what Inés Arrimadas did but this would not guarantee that he would end up being anointed president of the Generalitat.
This forecast can be twisted, however, if participation collapses today due to a double factor: the general demobilization of the constitutionalist vote and fear of the coronavirus. Health measures of all kinds have been adopted, but the effects of voting in these circumstances are unpredictable. Yesterday, in Moncloa there was concern about whether a high abstention today prevents Illa from winning the elections.
The pro-independence bloc, whose voters are always more mobilized and willing to vote, could be activated to unseat the candidate of the PSC, as it has already signed if it were to gather enough seats again to reach an absolute majority of 68 seats. There the second of the battles of this 14-F comes into play. The internal plebiscite of the independence movement will determine if Puigdemont maintains the reins of the separatist cause or if ERC manages to take them away after a decade of failed attempts. Rather than ambition for victory, ERC and JxCat seek to be the most voted independent force to raise the right to lead the Generalitat before their peers.
Three years ago, despite the very recent application of 155 and the imprisonment and flight of the members of the Government the negotiations to agree on the president were close to failing. Today that agreement would be even more difficult. Investing Pere Aragonès would mean for JxCat to assume that Puigdemont loses his role as plenipotentiary leader of the independence movement and to have to put aside his commitment to confrontation to resign himself to resuming the dialogue with the Sánchez Government and exploring an agreed self-determination referendum. Much should reverse the mark of the fugitive after passing the campaign promising to reactivate the unilateral declaration of independence if secessionism exceeds 50% of the votes.
ERC has already clarified that it would not feel bound by that milestone if it surpasses those of Puigdemont. But, if this is not achieved, it would be required to radicalize its roadmap and abandon all collaboration with the Government, something that would have a full impact on the stability of the central Executive, which today rests with the Republicans, preferred partners of the PSOE and Podemos. Puigdemont has given ERC his constant support for Sánchez to underline his betrayal of the independence movement in an electoral advance that he himself forced with the sought disqualification of Quim Torra. But it will hardly continue to tolerate a Government with two souls. The escapee will try to subdue Junqueras and dynamite Sánchez’s parliamentary majority to avenge his support for 155 in a single movement.
If he is daunted again before JxCat, he should swallow more ERC toads, because the unpolluted independence force should invest Laura Borras despite her accusation of corruption and assume that, if she ends up convicted and disqualified, Joan Canadell -a declared Trumpist- would end up elevated to the presidency by express order of Puigdemont.
In the shadow of the main dispute over the conquest of the no less demanded comes the PP to this 14-F. The Sorpasso of Vox to popular implicate Pablo Casado, having overturned like no other state leader in the Catalan electoral race with weekly visits to the community since long before you start the campaign. Preventing the formation chaired by Santiago Abascal from breaking into the Parliament by overtaking the PP and relegating it to the last position of the arc seems an essential goal to prevent Casado’s leadership and the ability of his party to reunify the center-right from being questioned.
That is the desire of Vox, which has carried out its campaign in abnormal conditions, after suffering the attacks of secessionism without seeing its options undermined. Rather, on the contrary, the violence was accompanied by protagonism and those of Abascal intend to take advantage of the focus to vindicate themselves as the force that will prevent new separatist stakes.
Despite the problems of voting in the midst of the pandemic, the Generalitat assures that the tables may be constituted and the results published this Sunday, after having questioned it this week. It will be more complicated for the governance of Catalonia to be cleared today.
