This Tuesday's Together for Catalonia (Junts) executive meeting has ended with fumata blanca. The leadership of the party has agreed that they will present Anna Erra, current acting mayor of the city of Vic, as a candidate for the speakership of the Catalan Parliament. This Friday, at noon, the chamber holds a special plenary session that includes as the only point on the agenda the vote for the new speaker of Catalonia's second most senior institution (after the Generalitat). With this choice by the party leadership, Erra becomes the favourite to succeed Laura Borràs at the reins of Parliament, since she will predictably have the support of ERC, while the CUP, crucial to the pro-independence majority, has already today announced that it will cast votes in blank, thus also facilitating the investiture of Erra, who is also a vice-president of the Junts party.
After last Thursday's move from the parliamentary Bureau, which carried through the order to strip Laura Borràs of her seat once the Supreme Court had denied the appeals presented by both parties, Junts activated its machinery to choose a successor. In fact, the name of Anna Erra had already been circulating for weeks as the principal candidate, as ElNacional.cat has previously reported. She was proposed by Jordi Turull's more moderate sector of the party, which Borràs finally accepted. However, today Erra and party president Borràs entered the executive meeting together, already putting on display the consensus in favour of the acting, but retiring, mayor of Vic. The meeting, which was expected to be long, went faster than expected.
Thus, the 31 deputies of Junts (the exiled minister Lluís Puig will not be able to take part) will vote for Anna Erra next Friday as new speaker. Other names that had circulated previously were those of Marta Madrenas (who will predictably leave the Catalan chamber in the coming weeks due to her candidacy at the head of the Junts list in Congress) and Aurora Madaula (who ruled herself out). All in all, Erra has always been the one with the most support, as was confirmed this Tuesday. In addition, Erra is a leader who carries a lot of weight within Junts. At the party congress in Argelers last June, she got more votes as vice-president than Laura Borràs as president and overall was the second most-voted candidate by members.
The votes that Anna Erra could obtain
Her candidacy is, at the outset, the one with the best chance of success. In recent weeks, the Republican Left (ERC) has insisted that the speakership of Parliament must be held by a pro-independence party and the meetings of the last few days to try to form a common pro-independence front are also in line with voting for a speaker of the house for Catalonia. Thus, Erra could have the 64 votes of Junts and ERC and, in addition, the CUP's blank votes will mean that a contrary majority is impossible. In addition to Erra, Assumpta Escarp (PSC), Joan Carles Gallego (En Comú Podem) and Matías Alonso (Cs) will also run. Voting takes place as follows: deputies write the candidate they support on a ballot paper and insert it into a ballot box. If in the first vote no candidate reaches an absolute majority, a second is held with the two candidates who received the most support in the first. The person who obtains a simple majority in the second round is elected speaker of Parliament.