There will be more than enough time to talk about the resignation threat, or about the resignation postponed until Monday, which Pedro Sánchez has put on the table and whose true nature no one knows for sure, but which everyone - and I wonder why - suspects is a little fishy. That it's a case where we don't know everything. Where the Spanish prime minister is up to something. That only he knows the outcome and that behind his move there is always an electoral motive. The other possibilities are too childish and too mediocre for a politician who tends to live immersed in his ego and surrounded by an inexhaustible demoscopy. They say that he isn't talking to anyone and is shut up in his solitude while his people talk about the need to save soldier Pedro, that it cannot be that the fascist-sphere and the lawfare brigade are working hand in glove to expel him from the Moncloa palace. Memories are short and do not go beyond the Ebro, but the real persecution, not the postured version, consists of the A por ellos [the "Go get 'em" chant used against the independentists], the prison and the exile. Alongside that, everything else is small, tiny. Insignificant. No matter how you look at it.
But, since the Sánchez soap opera will run for a while, we should wait to see the outcome - provisional or definitive - on Monday. Might it not be the case that coach Xavi Hernández has ended up gaining some unexpected followers, due to his ability to leave people speechless by confusing them and changing the script. The 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, celebrated this Thursday, happened in the country down the road and not here, where everything was much more inocuous, more of a continuation of Franco's regime of atado y bien atado - "everything well secured". Nothing revolutionary. There, António Costa, Portugal's prime minister since 2015, resigned last November after becoming embroiled in an investigation related to influence peddling, corruption and fraud in energy projects. The wind went out of the case after his resignation. There the public prosecutors were behind the accusation, here they are asking for the closing of the proceedings against Begoña Gómez.
This veritable elephant in the middle of the Catalan campaign may have its consequences. Of course. Which ones? It depends. The first objective has already been seen: an enormous desire to emphasize Spanish issues in the Catalan election. The impact that Sánchez could make on the force of an election that must not be dragged down by a situation that is inconsequential for the government of Catalonia. Because, in the end, on May 12th, that is what is decided: the political majorities that exist to elect a president of the Generalitat. Continuity or change? A sovereignist force at the head of the Catalan government or an executive chaired by a Socialist? A pro-independence majority in Parliament or a different majority from the one that has always existed in the Catalan chamber? A tripartite, a bipartite or a monochromatic government?
The Catalan election is about leadership and policies, about defending the country from its leading institution, applying policies to improve people's quality of life
All of this is what the Catalan election is about. It won't be stopped by the right, which, in Catalonia, since neither the PP nor Vox will have a political margin after May 12th, since they will not be used to complete government majorities. Everyone knows that. Elections are about leadership and policies. About defending the country from its leading institution, applying policies to improve people's quality of life. Catalans will vote based on these political coordinates. ElNacional.cat will comprehensively monitor the main parties that are running in the elections and will publish electoral polls, which, as in previous campaigns, will be carried out by the research company Feedback. Once again, we have to protest that in Spain the deadline for the publication of such surveys ends five days before the elections and one has to use the technique of finding out the changes in electoral support through foreign media.
The poll we published this Thursday night places, at the start of the electoral campaign, Salvador Illa in leading position, with between 39 and 40 seats. A significant - but not definitive - advantage compared to the 33-36 that the survey gives to the candidacy of Carles Puigdemont. In third place is the list of Pere Aragonès with between 24 and 27 seats. Behind are the PP (13-14), Vox (11), the Comuns (7-8) and the CUP (4-7). Undecided voters makes up 33.5%, a percentage that is certainly very high and likely to change this prediction, depending on what they end up deciding. That's what an election campaign, and whatever might happen in the next 17 days - until the polls open - is all about.