This weekend, Pedro Sánchez endorsed Illa as the candidate to achieve the “unity” of Catalonia and overcome the process. During the PSC congress, Illa himself presented the May 12 elections as an opportunity to “turn the page without vetoes or exclusions.” There is a lot of game left to play, but in the warm-up Illa’s electoral rivals show few signs of wanting to reach out to her. With practically identical reproaches. Aragonès has accused him in statements to The vanguard of being a “delegate” of Moncloa and Turull accuses him of being “a delegate of the Government of Spain in Catalonia.”
However the president underlines the good harmony that has been had with the PSC when reaching an agreement to try to approve the budgets and highlights that the socialists have remained in the “responsibility” bloc; unlike, he says, the behavior that Junts per Catalunya and En Comú Podem have shown. Both forces presented amendments to all of the Catalan accounts and forced Aragonès to bring forward the elections to May 12, more than half a year ahead of the date on which they were scheduled.
Esquerra and Junts maintain a granite rivalry to be the dominant force in the independence space. After the 2021 elections, both parties signed a non-aggression pact to maintain a coalition government in the Generalitat, but the alliance did not last a year and a half. Since then, October 2022, the Esquerra Government has tried to survive in the Parliament with a slim majority of 33 deputies out of 135. The PSC promised to lend its support to approve the 2024 accounts, but two votes were still missing to reach the majority that would have made the green light possible. Aragonès accuses Junts of being irresponsible, as well as the commons, for having refused to forge an agreement.
With the elections in sight, both Esquerra and Junts are trying to divert their darts to form a common front against Salvador Illa and the PSC. “The first task is to unite Catalans,” Illa stressed this Sunday at the PSC congress.
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