The convergent gene deciphered by Enric Juliana was a fruit of El de es otro, with common elements, but different. Let’s see. Led by Puigdemont, the , in which the PSC had been part of no less than 32 consecutive years. Now, Puigdemont’s party is on the verge of repeating that political success, but not by changing a municipal majority, but by overthrowing a Spanish Government, the one formed by the PSOE and Sumar.
That municipal victory placed Puigdemont as a leading figure among the Catalan nationalist right. It provided him with sufficient credentials to be the candidate of the coalition of the pro-independence right and left in 2015, at a time of acute political upheaval.
Since then, however, everything went wrong, completely wrong, for the independence coalition. Puigdemont knew defeat and exile. The sovereignty movement broke up, his party lost the presidency of the Generalitat at the hands of Esquerra Republicana, first, and then the PSC, and since 2021 he has been out of the Catalan Government. The only positive thing that Puigdemont has obtained after accumulating disasters is the pardon and
But in politics everything can get worse and that’s what Puigdemont is up to: now Junts wants to bring down Sánchez’s Government, even if it is the one that promotes nothing less than an amnesty for the independentists. So that it can be seen that this is true, he wanted to distance himself from Sánchez by moving on to personal insults. Cynical and hypocritical, he called him, after repeating the same string of accusations and curses that PP and Vox systematically dedicate to the president.
Puigdemont’s career includes being frozen a few minutes later, but after eight years, that is far from establishing him as a political leader. The other way around. All the rhetoric and independence inflammation have come to nothing, except jail and discredit. On the other hand, his credentials as a right-wing politician continue to be attractive to a large part of his followers. With the independence coalition with ERC and the CUP broken, Puigdemont has reaffirmed the alignment of Junts with the neoliberal right parties already marked since the time of Artur Mas.
It has also broken with the , which were a mix of Christian democracy, social democratic touches and the populism of Jordi Pujol so attractive to the Catalan trade. Now Junts is dedicated to denouncing the fiscal hell, demanding the abolition of the inheritance tax, demanding that immigration be curbed and showing that it detests
There was always a conservative element in CiU, but it was contained, limited by the need to cover a broader social sphere. That position has now become the dominant position in Junts and emerges clearly when its spokespersons show the great discomfort caused by having supported the left-wing PSOE government with Sumar, which they have detested since its very birth.
No conversations, no negotiations, Míriam Nogueras announced to Sánchez. Paradoxes of life, Puigdemont’s party has become the executor of and is on its way, to continue like this, to become its most effective instrument.
