Dolors Feliu's trident to defeat Puigdemont and Aragonès

The ideological control of the leadership of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) is already a palpable reality. Some activists complain both publicly and privately that the organization is tightly controlled by Feliu, who employs a handful of acolytes to prevent any initiative from being taken that is not to his liking.. The head of this powerful machinery is Uriel Bertran, who is actually the hand that rocks the cradle in the organization, who has been commissioned to prepare an internal consultation so that a civic list can be put forward that will confront ERC and JxCat in the next autonomous. It is about giving a corrective to the republican Pere Aragonès and the post-convergent Carles Puigdemont for not having complied with the guidelines issued by the ANC. It is a total order.

In mid-September, Feliu, together with the Secretary of Political Advocacy, Josep Lluís Rodríguez, met at the entity's headquarters with the new leadership of the small party Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència (SI): its secretary attended on behalf of this organization general, David Folch, the secretary of Studies, Programs and Strategy, Lluís Tenas and the secretary of Institutional and International Relations, Francesc Fíguls. No one should be surprised: the three are party colleagues of Uriel Bertran, Feliu's right hand man. Furthermore, SI was a party that between 2010 and 2012 maintained four deputies in the Parliament of Catalonia. The support of radical organizations is fundamental in the strategy of Feliu and his team.

Pro-independence sources point out that what the president of the ANC is preparing is a trident to run in the next regional elections. “He has given orders to his team to prepare an internal consultation that they themselves will control. It is already known, then, what result the consultation will have, but in this way it has the perfect excuse to draw up a civic list, saying that it has been the will of the militants to confront the traditional political parties in the elections,” the sources emphasize.. The operation is done in time so that a possible advance of the elections does not catch her off guard..

An enthusiastic president

Another source reports that “Feliu is enthusiastic and has two important names from the independence movement willing to show their faces.”. One is Clara Ponsatí, Carles Puigdemont's escape partner.. Ponsatí is crazy about participating in elections in the leading positions. What's more: she could go second, if in the end she doesn't top the list. In reality, she has offered, as if it were a sacrifice, to be the candidate. The other number is Jordi Graupera. “These two, together with Feliu, would be the trident of the ANC for an electoral contest.”. The philosopher Graupera was already the head of the list for Barcelona in the 2019 municipal elections and obtained more than 28,000 votes, 1,000 less than the CUP. Both formations were left out of the council by a handful of votes. The intention is to carry out the same maneuver, but in regional elections. “They already have everything prepared,” an internal source in the organization tells El Confidencial.. But that trident will be a public danger, because they have no sense of reality. “They live in a world apart and are totally out of the ordinary.”.

However, others could be added to these names in the future, since there are victims from other parties who are in the crosshairs of Feliu's team for the electoral adventure.. Specifically, there could be female deputies from an independence party who could be tapped for the new adventure.. And they don't forget Bertran either. “He is ambitious and wants to enter the Parliament again through the front door,” they say about him. Apparently, he claims a position in the first places, promising the entire machinery of his party, YES, in favor of the cause.

“What they intend to do, as they themselves explain, is a purer party, radical in nature, with a marked sovereignist and intransigent profile.. In fact, as it is conceived, it has a very limited ceiling, although it is true that it could have a niche of votes that we could call almost anti-system that would be very faithful. But they themselves know that their ceiling could be three or four deputies. The strategy, however, is to stay there to expand that extremist niche and turn it into a reference force.. “That's not easy and you run the risk of failing miserably.”.

“Do not put the ANC at risk”

Sources from the most radical sector explain to El Confidencial that they are not opposed to Feliu and his team wanting to make a foray into politics.. “But don't put the ANC at risk.”. Don't do it in the name of the ANC. Let them create a party and show up. The ANC is something else: it is a transversal organization, where all pro-independence ideologies have a place and which should not get involved in politics,” these sources explain..

The fight is fierce. From some sectors of the ANC, the parties are accused of wanting Dolors Feliu's organization dead. But the parties respond that the leadership of the Assembly has asked for it and makes merits daily for this rejection.. “What it should be is a civic entity that pulls the parties and reminds them of what their mission is. But it not only functions as a party, but it works as a party, assuming functions that do not correspond to it.. He tries to rule the remaining parties and threatens to stand in the elections. Is there any clearer proof of its nature?” criticizes a source from one of the pro-independence parties..

This fight becomes more bitter if we take into account that there is a group of former leaders who maneuver in the shadows to be able to have weight and even control the list.. Among those names are Miquel Sellarès and Pere Pugès, two of the founders of the organization more than 10 years ago.. “They are on one side, but they continue pulling certain threads and weaving contacts so as not to lose track.”. Although at first there was talk that they could lead a civic list, that seems unlikely now, and even less so considering that Feliu and his team control all the resources of the ANC.”.

Inside the ANC, critics are cornered and clearly swept aside. The anti-Feliu sector, grouped in the Indesinenter collective, renounced, just before the summer, a collection of signatures within the ANC because it could not access the entity's census: Feliu and his people vetoed that access and thus safeguarded the president. In February, 13 members of the secretariat resigned, in the largest fracture of the leadership seen so far. But many others stayed inside, crouching, so as not to lose sight of Feliu and try to mark her closely.. Critics assure that the ANC “must embark on a new course, with a new truly democratic, assembly-oriented and participatory leadership.”. However, they don't know how to stop her, because she runs wild..

mixed opinions

“Decisions are made from the top without consulting them with the secretariat, as the statutes say and as has always been done. But the small group that has hijacked the organization goes beyond the rules. Until now, all decisions were made by scrupulous consensus. The consequence of this authoritarianism is the disenchantment of the people and the decrease in militancy.. In reality, we do not know at this time how many militants continue to pay their dues, but we fear that there are considerably fewer than a few years ago,” say critics..

Furthermore, they highlight the fact that “attendance at this year's Diada was not a success.”. There was at least 30% less attendance than last year, which should make the leadership reconsider. But, instead, they counterattacked by saying that there were 100,000 more people, which not even they themselves believed.. “The ANC, as it functions, is doomed to irrelevance”.

Those closest to the official line of the organization affirm, on the other hand, that “what has been done is to stand up to the parties, preventing the ANC from becoming a sectoral group of ERC, Junts and the CUP destined only to mobilize the street. “The ANC has raised the idea of the civic list precisely so as not to be a prisoner of the processist parties.”. Thus, Feliu has an arduous mission ahead of him to carry out his project, facing not only the large sovereignist formations, but also an internal opposition that could put obstacles in his way and even cause an even greater split in the entity.. His battle not only against Spain.