Together for Catalonia (Junts) have launched their 2023 general election campaign at an event this Thursday night as the rain fell in Barcelona. From the Palo Alto market, the party's candidate for the Congress of Deputies, Míriam Nogueras, started on the trail towards the 23rd July making it clear that the votes for her party will have "the highest price": "No vote in our custody will be given away, and certainly not in exchange for nothing so that they continue to mistreat us as the state has been doing, whichever party governs". Nogueras stated that "voices are coming from Madrid that are worried" by the possibility that "Junts will be decisive": "It's been a long time since Catalonia demand to be shown respect and now that we are getting it, we will put the highest price on each and every vote, and that makes people uncomfortable."
The number one of the Junts list for the Spanish lower house specified that this means "not acting as minions for any Spanish government". "With us, nothing will be the same; if it depends on us, everything will change in Madrid, but also in Catalonia," she added. Míriam Nogueras emphasized that votes for her party "are not at the service of the People's Party, nor the PSOE, nor of Felipe VI; they are at the service of Catalonia, therefore, neither PP nor PSOE, Catalonia". Nogueras, however, admitted that it is a "complex" moment and that there is a "certain discouragement and fatigue", with "difficulties" such as this Wednesday's ruling by the European General Court, which removed the immunity of president Carles Puigdemont and former ministers Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí. Nevertheless, the candidate believes that it is necessary to maintain "a morale of victory" because they are "in a position to change everything".
No investiture if there is no "recognition of self-determination"
The Junts candidate for Senate for Barcelona, Toni Castellà, expanded the meaning of the party's election slogan 'Enough is enough'. Castellà, also national spokesperson for Democrates, running with Junts, specified that there will be no investiture "without the recognition of the right to self-determination that we exercised on October 1st". "Survival as a nation is at stake, we have to go from standing up to them to making them bend, we will not stabilize any Spanish government and let them repeat the elections as many times as necessary, but we will not take a step back," asserted the candidate. He admitted that Wednesday's court ruling in Luxembourg is "unjust" and does not contribute to a good spirit, but that there is no "ethical or moral reason to give in". "On the 23rd, the answer we must give is that there is a social majority for independence and that we will not stop, we must fill the ballot boxes because nothing is over," he said.