ERC and Junts await their opportunity with Pedro Sánchez if the PP fails to gain a majority

Certainly, the Catalan independence forces lost 350,000 votes in the municipal elections on May 28. Certainly, they have been unable to display an image of a reunion during the generals campaign to re-engage their voters and reverse the abstention, which is presented as their main enemy next Sunday. But no less true is that ERC and Junts can be decisive for the governability of Spain if the PP fails to add the necessary majority to remove Pedro Sánchez from the presidency.

It is obvious that the socialist will be able to continue resorting to ERC if his support is enough for him to stay in La Moncloa. The party led by Oriol Junqueras has staged a hardening of its conditions to anoint the PSOE candidate, but it will not hesitate to do so if given the opportunity, aware that the policy of concessions towards the independence movement would end abruptly if Alberto Núñez Feijóo gathers the necessary votes to be sworn in.

There are three conditions for the Republicans to return to support Sánchez: keeping the negotiation table on Catalan self-determination alive is the main. Shortly before the crash of the local elections, Pere Aragonès appointed a committee of experts that was to design a “clarity pact” to invite the State to agree to hold an internationally comparable referendum. The work of that Sanhedrin has been paralyzed until the result of the general elections is known, but ERC's commitment is to continue advancing on this path to end up demanding a secessionist vote tolerated by the Government, unlike the one organized on October 1, 2017.

If Sánchez swallows this requirement, the road will appear flat, but not expeditious, since ERC also demands the end of the “fiscal deficit” and the transfer of the Cercanías network. This last condition could be assumable in accordance with the concessions made in the expiring legislature, with the pardons and the elimination of the crime of sedition at the head. But it will be more difficult to achieve the end of this “plunder” that the Catalan independence movement has been brandishing as an electoral argument since it can remember.

In any case, this obstacle will be easier to overcome than the obstinacy of Carles Puigdemont. «Sánchez will not be president with the votes of Junts. Paying in advance to a guy you wouldn't even buy a second-hand car from is a risky sport,” the fugitive said last week.. His valid, the related Míriam Nogueras, will execute the fugitive's orders without hesitation and these go through boycotting the operation of the State as much as possible. Coming to force an electoral repetition? It is a plausible scenario for a party that wants to regain prominence to return to dispute the Generalitat with ERC as soon as possible. And what better poster than to show that secessionism is once again the main headache in Spain, contrary to what Sánchez defends, who considers Catalonia “normalized”.

That the independence movement could be decisive this 23-J does not mean that its results are going to be spectacular. The demoscopy gives the PSC a certain victory and gives the PP possibilities to follow the Catalan socialists as a second force, surpassing the two great pro-independence parties and reaching eight or nine deputies, for the current two.

Assigned the victory, that second place has become the main object of desire of the parties that wage the Catalan battle. If the PP conquered it, its resurrection in the community would be ratified and would underpin a comfortable victory for Feijóo. Meanwhile, ERC and Junts seek to prevail in their particular duel with their sights set on the next Catalan regional elections that will take place in 2025 if Aragonès does not succumb to his minority beforehand.