A clear majority - 59.5% - of rank and file members of the CUP (Popular Unity Candidature) has voted in favour of the pre-accord for a new pro-independence Catalan government reached with ERC (Republican Left), although they consider it insufficient. This is the result of the online assembly of party members which the anti-capitalist, pro-independence party held last night. Its nine MPs will vote 'yes' to ERC's Pere Aragonès as president of a new Catalan government in the first ballot to be held on Friday, although unless the votes of Junts (Together for Catalonia) are secured in time, the first investiture vote is doomed to fail.
More than a thousand registered CUP members took part in the CUP assembly last night, with heated debate on the position that deputies should take during the investiture debate, less than 24 hours away. The virtual ballot box closed at 10am this morning and the result is as follows:
Question One: Do you support the pre-accord proposal?
Yes: 564 (59.31%)
No: 367 (38.59%)
Blank: 20 (2.10%)
Question Two: If a majority are in favour of the accord in Question One, do you think the accord is sufficient?
Yes: 121 (12.91%)
No: 802 (85.59%)
Blank: 14 (1.49%)
Question Three: If a majority oppose the accord in Question One, do you think that the CUP should still facilitate the investiture of ERC?
Yes: 426 (47.12%)
No: 437 (48.34%)
Blank: 41 (4.54%)
Thus, 85.6% of CUP membership made it clear to their party representatives that despite their endorsement for the investiture of Aragonés to avoid blocking the legislature, they do not have sufficient with the deal signed by CUP and ERC teams, which among other points incorporates the future president’s commitment to submit his leadership to a mid-term no-confidence vote.
The assembly was attended by 1,401 activists from the eleven organizations that made up the 14th February election candidacy. In addition to the CUP, Guanyem Catalunya, Pirates, Arran, Constituents per la Ruptura, Crida Constituent, Endavant OSAN, Lluita Internacionalista, Poble Lliure, Sindicat d’Estudiants dels Països Catalans and La Forja have had a voice.
Junts have the last word
With the enigma of the CUP membership's approval now resolved, everything is in the hands of Junts. Right until the deadline for voting in the investiture, on Friday, ERC will carry on in its efforts to convince the Puigdemont-led party to allow Aragonés to become president on the first ballot.
The 32 deputies of Junts - 31 if the delegated vote of exiled former minister Lluís Puig is not accepted - are essential to reach the finish line. According to sources close to the negotiation, at midday Thursday their most likely option seems to be an abstention. If so, the investiture would not prosper on the first ballot and could only be viable with an impossible condition on the second: that the PSC (Catalan Socialist party) would also abstain.
In any case, it could be an unprecedented scenario. Never, in the years of the independence process since 2012, has the first vote been attempted without a prior agreement between the two main pro-independence parties, who in all three of the Catalan legislatures over the last nine years have had a majority on paper and have ended up forming a government.
In the main image, Sabater and Reguant of CUP talk to Borràs and Dalmases of Junts during a Pere Aragonès press conference. / Marc Puig