With a week left before the 11th September demonstration, the jigsaw of political actors from the Catalan independence movement are starting to pull in the same direction, the sections of the rally ANC colours based on the number of sign ups are starting to abandon their green tones of low attendance for those of high or almost full, and the Catalan president, Quim Torra, has placed the Diada protest as the first act in response to the sentence from the Supreme Court which will be published during the first fortnight of October. The moments of concern from August appear to have passed, when the territorial mobilisation for the Diada was more restrained and some alarms went off in pro-independence organisations. Around 200,000 signed up and more than 700 coaches are similar numbers to what there were at the same time last year and allows us to say already that the gathering around plaça d'Espanya will be very large.
And, in the middle of all this, there's the possible investiture of Pedro Sánchez as Spanish prime minister if he manages to tie up the votes he still doesn't have from the deputies of Unidas Podemos, who he's offered 370 legislative measures in exchange for remaining out of the cabinet. The latter party is currently saying no, but there are days left and the pressure its leaders are receiving is starting to be suffocating. Maybe to not find itself in the crosswise altercation between the two sides, Esquerra Republicana has decided to communicate to the public that its position will be in the same vein as that from before the summer: to facilitate Sánchez's investiture and thereby pressure Podemos to accept the acting prime minister's proposal. The line from Gabriel Rufián is very critical of Sánchez's position on the matter of Catalonia ("his proposal is terrible"), but he separates it from his vote with two arguments: he wants to give an opportunity for conversations and politics and believes a hypothetical government of the three right-wing parties would always be worse. As Esquerra's leaders always say, it's not a comfortable position (nor comprehensible for some independence supporters) but is in line with the positions it's been moving towards, aspiring to conquer electoral spaces which so far have been opposed to them.
This whole outline will have to face up to the months coming in Catalonia with the Supreme Court sentences which, although unannounced, everyone agrees will be very harsh. Sánchez, who knows this, is scared of being hostage to this hypothetical political escalation in Catalonia and that with an investiture in such conditions the legislature could become impractical. To put it another way, if he ends up counting on Unidas Podemos' votes, it will go against what his leaders want, and Esquerra could go up in smoke after the sentences. A very bad deal, they're thinking in the Moncloa palace. Votes for today, problems for tomorrow.
And with Torra suggesting confrontation with the Spanish state as the path set from the presidency of the Catalan government for the coming months.