Why can Sánchez no longer count on the votes of Junts in Congress? There is not a single reason, but several factors explain the troubles of the independence party. They range from the Supreme Court’s refusal to pardon Carles Puigdemont to the presidency of Salvador Illa or the struggle with the ERC to lead the independence movement.
The Llarena factor
It is clear that the Supreme Court’s maneuvers to deny Puigdemont amnesty are not the government’s fault. But sources from Junts explain to elDiario.es that they lack greater strength from the Executive when it comes to holding judges who refuse to apply the law accountable, starting with Pablo Llarena and continuing with the Criminal Court presided over by Manuel Marchena. Puigdemont has called them “la toga nostra.”
The Supreme Court’s Prosecutor’s Office appealed the decision to deny the measure to the former president and refuted Judge Llarena’s specific argument that pro-independence leaders had taken advantage of 1-O by not providing funds from their own pockets to organize the vote.
But for the independentists, this is not enough, and they demand from the entire government an attitude as firm as the one it maintains towards another judge, Juan Carlos Peinado, against whom the public prosecutor filed a complaint in the context of a trial opened against the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez.
Although Minister Óscar Puente has been one of the most critical of the Supreme Court, Junts did not appreciate the statements he made a few weeks ago, stressing that the government “did what it could and what it had to” and that now it is the turn of the judges to do “what is appropriate, that is, to interpret the laws accordingly, especially according to their literal wording.”
Junts Secretary General Jordi Turull responded that they believe the Executive can do “much more.” “The State and the State Government have mechanisms to act legally against judges who have decided not to apply the law to certain people,” he responded. And that same week, Junts’ spokesperson in Congress, Míriam Nogueras, insisted that the President of the Government be held accountable: “Sánchez must provide explanations for the Supreme Court’s procrastination in applying the amnesty law.”
The presidency of Illa
Sánchez could choose between helping Salvador Illa become president of the Generalitat or pleasing Puigdemont in exchange for guaranteeing the votes of Junts in Congress. From the day after the regional elections, it was clear that the socialists would not facilitate a Puigdemont presidency and that Sánchez would put in Congress a PSC government that would have completed its policy of “pacification” on arithmetic.
The independentists warned him that the parliamentary life of the PSOE was going to become very complicated (even if it was not very easy before). Sánchez has already begun to prove it this week, when Junts distanced itself from the majority of the investiture in the Permanent Deputation. Unless things change a lot, the vote that will confirm the difficulties that await the PSOE will be the budget. The Government will present them, even though it knows that it is very likely that it will have to extend them again due to lack of sufficient support.
Neither in the PSOE nor in the PP bloc
Junts had already explained at the beginning of the legislature that, unlike the other parties that supported Sánchez’s investiture, they do not consider themselves part of any bloc. Nogueras has recalled this in numerous speeches, whether to justify a vote in support of the socialists or to side with the PP.
Although Sánchez’s survival is becoming increasingly difficult, only a motion of censure could expel him from Moncloa. To achieve this, PP, Vox and Junts would have to join forces. Sources from the pro-independence party assure that they have no intention of participating in such an operation.
Strengthening the Puigdemont-Turull tandem
The last weekend of October will take place in Calella (Barcelona) the Congress of Junts, a conclave that will serve to strengthen the tandem Puigdemont and Turull to lead the party. This is already the formula that works at present, although formally it may imply that the current president, Laura Borràs, who has lost a lot of influence, will be even more relegated in decision-making and will have to settle for a more symbolic than effective position.
Although there is often speculation about the importance of the so-called pragmatic sector (the one that was in favor of remaining in the government of Aragonès but lost in the vote of the militants), the reins and projects of the party will continue in the hands of the leaders most sympathetic to Puigdemont. During the conclave, three presentations will be debated, one on strategy, another on organization and a third on the model of the country. In all three cases, it is clear that the former president continues to define the strategy of Junts.
Further weakening the ERC
“Junts will be the one to defend the eight million Catalans before Madrid,” Puigdemont proclaimed in July in front of more than 2,000 people who cheered him at the event celebrating the fourth anniversary of the party’s founding that took place in Els Banys i Palaldà (France). The pro-independence leader was referring to the subordination that, according to him, the Illa government will maintain with respect to the PSOE. But it was also a way of claiming to be a reference for pro-independence voters who could be disappointed by the ERC.
The bad relations between the two parties were clearly highlighted when Puigdemont wrote in a letter that his arrest was “a real possibility” because of the ERC, which made the Republicans very angry. The subsequent maneuver of the former president to escape from the Mossos on the day of Illa’s inauguration provoked their anger even more. Especially to the Minister of the Interior at the time, Joan Ignasi Elena, a man very close to Oriol Junqueras.
Junts wants to be the first party of the independence movement and at the same time recover the support of the old sectors linked to Junts, those that ERC has not managed to approach and those that Illa likes for his discourse on infrastructure and security.
In this permanent competition between post-convergents and republicans, the ERC can also make its support for Sánchez more expensive since it no longer needs to seek support for its government. Until its congress specifies whether or not Junqueras is once again at the head of the party, nothing will change in this formation. This autumn, it will therefore be clarified whether, seven years after the famous October 2017, Puigdemont and Junqueras are still fighting to lead the independence movement.
