The publication of some compromising audio recordings of the speaker of parliament, Laura Borràs, in which, among other things, she can be heard, when she was Catalan culture minister, questioning a government official - the person who took the recordings to the Catalan High Court (TSJC) - on the payment of a bill to a friend of hers, Isaías Herrero, and which refers to the period when she was director of cultural organ the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC), obliges the second highest authority in Catalonia to make a public explanation to clarify the doubts that currently exist. Borràs has always defended her innocence since this case came to light, she has never hidden from or shunned public clarification, and she has asserted that there is a dark judicial interest in removing her from public life. And in truth, there have been so many cases in which the judiciary has acted in this way with the Catalan pro-independence leaders, that there are reasons to believe her explanations.
However, an official from the Catalan culture ministry has provided some audios that refute her public version so far and need clarification on her part before the snowball gets bigger. The lawyer representing Borràs has called for a complete version of the conversation to be made available so that it is not judged out of context. Gonzalo Boye is right to demand this and the fact that the TSJC has summonsed the parties quite quickly for June 8th is relevant, with the result likely to be very helpful in clarifying things. But politics moves at a different speed than other matters and that is why it is important for Laura Borràs to clarify any doubts that may exist, since even before these audios came to light the prosecution accused her, Herrero and Roger Espar - the civil servant who took the tapes to the TSJC - of misuse of funds and abuse of authority in the concession of eighteen minor contracts (that is to say, awarding them by fiat) by the cultural body to Herrero that add up to 309,000 euros.
The fact that the Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party congress will be held this weekend in Argelers, in northern Catalonia, and will address the replacement of Carles Puigdemont and Jordi Sànchez in the party presidency and general secretariat positions respectively, and the election if the members ratify it, something which is already taken for granted, of Laura Borràs and Jordi Turull as the two new leaders, is also a second reason to expect these explanations to occur, as has been the case on previous occasions. The crossroads at which Junts finds itself now, in the face of the enormous challenge to reach the forefront of Catalan politics again and abandon the third place it currently occupies, demands clarification of all doubts.
It is also true that Junts needs to regain the support of the part of the electorate that it lost between the 2017 Catalan election - the election called by Mariano Rajoy after he had dissolved the Catalan government, applied article 155, and seized power of its institutions - and that of 2021, in the midst of a pandemic and after the TSJC had removed Quim Torra from the presidency of the Generalitat. Congresses serve to relaunch a political party and although Junts is losing its main reference, Carles Puigdemont, as the party's official reference point, no one doubts that, at least for a while, the image of the president in exile and that of the party which he founded will be inexorably united no matter how much he has made it clear that his priority dedication will henceforth be the Council for the Republic exile organ, of which he holds the presidency.