Former Catalan government ministers Miquel Sàmper and Santi Vila have joined the SI platform, a support network for the candidacy of Salvador Illa for Catalan presidency in the parliamentary elections to be held this Sunday, May 12th. Sàmper and Vila join a manifesto with almost 200 people from Catalan society, from the worlds of culture, academia and journalism, who call for a new era for Catalonia with a "president capable of representing the whole of the citizenry, working to unite and avoid dividing, to be more dedicated to obtaining results than looking for reasons, to be committed to dialogue and cooperation, to avoid dispute and confrontation".
Both were members of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), the main predecessor party of Together for Catalonia (Junts). In the case of Vila, he served as a member of Carles Puigdemont's Catalan government in 2017 and broke with the president in October 2017, before moving away from the pro-independence parties; on the other hand, Sàmper served in Junts itself until February of this year. Among the other names on the list are some who have been regular signatories of manifestos against the independence movement; some of the better known names on the list include film director Isabel Coixet, singer-songwriter Joan Manel Serrat, former Convergència MP Josep López Lerma, and television presenter Jorge Javier Vázquez.
The signatories call for a "government that goes to work, that faces the problems that have been ignored, that is able to do what has been done wrong, that practices close collaboration with all the administrations, especially with the city halls". The manifesto sets out multiple reasons why they believe that "now it's Salvador Illa's turn". They defend a "first-class Catalonia proud of its plural and diverse identity, promoter of the Catalan language and culture" and that they claim to "work to improve self-government and financing". The addition of the two ex-CDC ministers to the SI manifesto is the latest shot in a duel of such manifestos between the two candidates who head the election polls, with Puigdemont having earlier published a list of 5,000 figures who gave public support to the Junts candidate, including a number of former Socialist leaders.
Santi Vila has been one of the dissenting voices regarding the handling of the October 1st mandate and the referendum held by the Carles Puigdemont-led government of which he was part. Since then, he has moved away from independentism and become close to figures in the Catalan Socialists, such as Jaume Collboni. In fact, Vila is the head of the Infrastructure Advisory Committee that the mayor of Barcelona launched a month after assuming the baton. In addition, he had already attended Socialist events during the 2023 municipal election campaign.
More surprising is the accession of Miquel Sàmper. Catalan interior minister between 2020 and 2021, he was also a member of Junts until three months ago. Sàmper, who returned to the legal profession after leaving the ministry, communicated at the beginning of February in a letter to the leadership of the pro-independence party that he was tearing up his membership card due to discrepancies with the decisions the party had taken in recent times, especially Junts's initial 'no' to the processing of the amnesty law in the Congress of Deputies for not being "solid enough". From Samper's perspective, that decision meant a delay in the application of the amnesty. Both he and Santi Vila attended the 'Unir i servir' (Unite and serve) speech that Salvador Illa gave at the Barcelona Maritime Museum on April 11th, where the Socialist presented his roadmap. Former Catalan minister Meritxell Ruiz could also be seen at this event.
Salvador Illa meets Miquel Roca
The support of Sàmper and Vila for the candidacy of Salvador Illa is not the only approximation of the Socialist candidate to figures who come from Convergència circles. Throughout the campaign, Illa has proposed that his government promote "the third great transformation of Catalonia", emphasizing that the first was the promotion of self-government and where he has always acknowledges the "leadership" of Jordi Pujol, the Convergència president who dominated Catalan politics in the late 20th century. Another calculated campaign moment with a connection to the catalanista party took place this Tuesday, when Illa published a photograph of a meeting he had held in the afternoon with Miquel Roca Junyent, historical leader of CDCand one of the "fathers of the Spanish constitution". In a publication on X, the head of the PSC list stated that they had "exchanged impressions on the political moment that Catalonia is experiencing". "A pleasure, as always," he emphasized.
