Perhaps the highlight of the swearing-in of the 132nd president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès (ERC), was an intelligent combination of expressing the desire to begin a new phase, along with the graphic image of his predecessor in office, Quim Torra, placing over his shoulders the ceremonial medallion that symbolically makes him into Catalonia's highest political authority. A clear and unambiguous political statement intented to give the message that the disqualification from office of the previous president by the Spanish Supreme Court - for hanging a banner on the Generalitat palace - has no effect when it comes to projecting the continuity of the Catalan institutions. One president hands over the command to another president. A strong symbolism that disempowers actions of state repression.
The second important gesture was the presence of several of the pro-independence political prisoners who are serving sentences at Lledoners jail: Oriol Junqueras, the president of ERC and the mentor of Aragonès, the president of Òmnium, Jordi Cuixart, and Jordi Sànchez, imprisoned as president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and currently general secretary of the Junts party. The television images captured a conversation between Sànchez and the Spanish territorial minister, Miquel Iceta, who was representing the Spanish government at the event. The same situation occurred at another moment between Jordi Cuixart and Iceta. It was a gesture of detente that will have its defenders and detractors, but which demonstrates the exceptional situation of Catalonia, with Sànchez and Cuixart being about to return to prison and Iceta, one of the intellectual authors along with Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría of the imposition of Article 155 on Catalonia, was present in his capacity as a minister of the Kingdom of Spain, which has condemned them to the barbarous sentence of nine years in prison.
With Aragonès now holding full powers as president, the clock starts to tick for the political moves of the Spanish government and its prime minister Pedro Sánchez. There are no longer any excuses for delaying the dialogue table or the granting of pardons so often promised and which continue to be processed at snail’s pace. The amnesty for those affected by judicial action and and the right to self-determination will be present at this dialogue table and it remains to be seen whether this Operation Dialogue 2 will come to naught again as it did the first time around, when it was reduced to just a friendly photo, and no indication of any negotiation on anything, let alone any agreement.
The final names of members of the new Catalan executive to be announced have one feature worth noting: the real need for change in a worn-out cabinet whose momentum is very low. Only Aragonès will continue, as president; Puigneró, as vice-president and Teresa Jordà as climate minister. There would never have been a clean-out like this between one government and the next if there had not been a change of the party in power in the middle. It is, in short, a demonstration of the need for change that existed, with the odd honourable exceptions of a minister who has been left out undeservedly, such as is the case of Ramon Tremosa.