Carles Puigdemont is not throwing in the towel despite the victory of Salvador Illa's Catalan Socialists (PSC) this Sunday in the election to the Parliament of Catalonia. From his base in Argelers (Northern Catalonia), the Junts+ Puigdemont for Catalonia candidate has announced his intention to present his candidacy for the presidency of the Generalitat. He affirms that he has already begun party contacts in the quest to build a majority and that, if he has the support of the pro-independence bloc of MPs, Illa would only be able to defeat him if he had not only the votes of the People's Party (PP), but also, as a minimum, the abstention of Vox, which contradicts the agreement made by Junts, the PSC and others that they would not use far-right votes to win the presidential investiture. "We are in a position to form a coherent government with strong leadership," said Puigdemont who did, however, admit that he is still far from obtaining the agreement of other parties. The first step, he says, will be an agreement on the parliamentary Bureau when parliament is constituted, at which time, Junts wants to make use of the relative numerical advantage that the pro-independence parties have.
Puigdemont reiterated that he has not yet started negotiations, beyond first contacts with the general secretary of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Marta Rovira. However, he gave the diagnosis that, with ERC having ruled out the option of a left-wing tripartite pact, there is no other option for a government with an absolute majority - given that Junts itself will not make a so-called sociovergència deal with the PSC, and Illa has assured that his party will not use the support of Vox, either actively or passively, to win the presidency. "It would be very bad news if we were not able to avoid a repeat election," he commented.
Mathematically, the PSC could assemble either a leftist tripartite (PSC, ERC and Comuns-Sumar) or a pact with the other Spanish parties, the PP and Vox. Both of these options add up to 68 seats, that is to say, an absolute majority. But both appear extraordinarily complex right now. At present, the PSC with its 42 deputies can count on the 6 MPs of the Comuns, thus reaching 48 seats, which is less than the 55 that would be the result of Junts and ERC making a pro-independence deal, a figure which would go up to 59 if they also had the CUP on board. The Socialists would, then, also have to seek help from the 15 deputies of the PP - thus obtaining a total of 63, but the sum of the rest of the MPs in Parliament would continue to be higher - 72 votes - which would derail the investiture of Illa, and thus, the Socialist candidate could only succeed if he counted on the abstention of Vox.
PSC's abstention needed
Puigdemont affirmed that he sees himself becoming president, and that, if this were not the case, he would not attempt to obtain the investiture. He has, he said, the possibility of having more votes in favour than against - the requirement for success on the second ballot of an investiture vote - with a "coherent majority and strong leadership". He admitted that to achieve this scenario would require a forced abstention from the Socialists, and he insisted that although his candidature has no intention of negotiating with the PSC, he gives the message that any agreement between Illa and the PP would contradict the agreements reached between Junts and the Spanish Socialists, the PSOE, for the stability of the Spanish government: "Stability in Madrid is guaranteed if they [the Socialists] comply with the pacts", he said, and this kind of understanding would leave them "meaningless". "I have always said that if there is dirty play, such as actively using the support of the PP, and passively that of Vox, then it is clear that we cannot continue," he argued. With the same argument, and with reference to the stability of a minority pro-independence government in Catalonia, he raised the question of whether, in the Catalan Parliament, Illa would vote against what Junts had agreed with the PSOE in Madrid.
As for the CUP, he stated that he does not plan to incorporate the far-left pro-independence party into his government, but he recalled that at other times they have reached parliamentary agreements.
Diabolical arithmetic
Junts was the only one of the three main pro-independence parties that expanded its support at the polls yesterday. It won 35 deputies, three more than in 2021. However, the growth of Junts does not compensate for the poor results achieved by the rest of the pro-independence parties, which collapsed. ERC lost 13 deputies to be left with only 20, while the CUP, winning four MPs, has lost more than half of its seats.
All in all, and despite the clear victory by the PSC, which obtained 42 deputies, Puigdemont made it clear yesterday that he was not resigned to giving up on obtaining the presidency, and that he was willing to try and move forward with a governance proposal. In fact, last night he already sent a message to Pedro Sánchez warning him that the difference in votes between himself and Illa is not too different from that between the PSOE and the PP in the Congress of Deputies.
Regarding the negotiation of the new government, Puigdemont recalled that for the first time there is no pro-independence majority in Parliament, which will affect the strategy of the pro-sovereignty forces in the coming years. But, he underlined, as he has done throughout the campaign, that he will be very active in working to restore pro-independence unity.