2024-04-25 21:55:29
The Catalan electoral campaign has kicked off in a unique scenario in which the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has left open the possibility that he will resign from the Executive.
The three big favorites -Salvador Illa of the PSC, Pere Aragonès of ERC, and Carles Puigdemont of Junts+ Puigdemont per Catalunya, face to lead the Generalitat in a campaign that has begun marred by the decision of Pedro Sánchez and that, depending on his decision , could alter it even more: with the amnesty still in the air, Puigdemont’s return could be delayed.
Sánchez stars at the start of the campaign
In fact, at the start of the campaign, all the candidates have commented on Pedro Sánchez’s decision to cancel his agenda after denouncing his wife, Begoña Gómez. The leader of the PSC and candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has begun his campaign precisely by alluding to the absence of the president, whom he wanted to support under the slogan “We are with you, president”, which has been projected on the screens of the socialist rally.
Illa has supported Sánchez and called for “collective resistance.” Meanwhile, the rest of the candidates, and even the Government’s partners in Congress, have been very critical of Sánchez’s decision. Without going any further, Carles Puigdemont has asked him to leave the house “in tears” and has insisted that the Catalan campaign should not be “Spanishized.”
The current president of the Generalitat and ERC candidate, Pere Aragonès, has also launched an attack against Sánchez and has told him that “I am also very in love with my wife, but I do not give up when the extreme right attacks, I stand up.” For the ERC candidate, focusing on Sánchez’s personal situation means stopping “talking about corruption cases” such as the ‘Koldo case’.
During the event he was supported by the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, who said that it is “difficult for him to understand” that the president of the Spanish Government needs five days to know if he wants to continue in office.
For her part, the Comuns Sumar candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, Jéssica Albiach, has asked the President of the Government and the PSOE-Sumar coalition to “resist” the right-wing offensive.
The leader and candidate of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, on the other hand, has taken advantage of the start of the campaign to criticize Sánchez. “Three weeks ago Puigdemont said that he was considering leaving (if he were not president of the Generalitat). Yesterday Sánchez told us that he was also thinking of leaving. Don’t hesitate, let them be decisive. If they both leave on Monday, they will have everything support and understanding,” he noted.
Illa as favorite
The latest polls predict a victory for the PSC with Salvador Illa as the favorite, while Junts and ERC would compete for second place. If in 2021 the independence movement achieved the absolute majority in votes – up to 52% -, this time a slight drop is expected.
This same Thursday, the pre-election survey by the Sociological Research Center (CIS) put Salvador Illa’s PSC as the winner of the Catalan elections on May 12, with 39-40 seats, above JxCat (28-30) and ERC (27-28), who would fight for second place.
In fourth position would be the PP, with 13-14 deputies, followed by Vox (8-9), Comuns Sumar (7-8) and CUP (5-7), while Aliança Catalana, the far-right pro-independence party that led by the mayor of Ripoll (Girona), Sílvia Orriols, could break into the Parliament (0-2).
With respect to the Aliança Catalana, this CIS survey is not the first survey that gives it the possibility of entering the Parliament. Likewise, this April 23, other polls on the elections in Catalonia published gave a seat to this formation.
Puigdemont’s return
The return of the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, is the great demand of his party in this electoral campaign in which he competes with different pro-independence formations. ERC, for its part, aims to gain a foothold between the PSC and Junts+ Puigdemont per Catalunya.
The rest of the parties are also playing for their place on the Catalan political board. While Comuns Sumar is playing to keep its seats after the poor results of the Galician and Basque women; Vox, which burst into the Catalan parliament with force in the last regional elections, is fighting to maintain, with the help of its candidate, Ignacio Garriga, its space in the Parliament.
Who also hopes to revalidate its good results is the CUP, which in 2021 was proclaimed as the fifth force with 9 seats.
The PP, for its part, which collapsed in 2021 with only 3 deputies, hopes to recover the votes of Ciudadanos, whom the polls leave out of the Parliament.
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