There were not a few who felt the call of politics in Catalonia in that dizzying autumn of 2017, with 1-O, the DUI, 155 or the entry into provisional prison of the leaders of the process. Both to one side and to the other. And Nacho Martín Blanco (Barcelona, 1982), a journalist and political scientist who had spent some years forging his defense of the unity of Spain and opposition to Catalan nationalism on numerous television and radio talk shows (many times, in a manifest minority), accepted the Ciudadanos offer and became a parliamentary deputy after the party's historic victory in the regional elections at the end of that year.
At any other time, he could have been equally tempted by the PP, a force to which he is linked by an ideological affinity just as complete as to what has been his political house for nearly six years.. But the popular wear due to cases of corruption or the management of the Government of Mariano Rajoy during the sovereignist process decanted his choice towards a brand at that time fresher and more exciting and whose style book, established by Albert Rivera, was in tune with his verb sharp and uninhibited speech.
But that day has come to an end and Martín Blanco will appear as number one on the PP ballots that are distributed in the electoral colleges of the province of Barcelona in the general elections on July 23. With the same speed with which he articulates his messages, in less than a week he has gone from being the spokesman for Ciudadanos in the Catalan Parliament to leaving all his posts and party membership to link his fate to the project of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, where he does look at that future that he believes that the orange formation has let slip away, now yes, without remedy.
His position on the 23-J list assures him, de facto, a place in the Congress of Deputies. There lies, probably, another of the keys to a decision that has aroused criticism, and will continue to arouse it, among his former co-religionists. If the step he took in 2017, from the sets to the speakers' rostrum, represented an enormous personal fulfillment for a passionate politician like Martín Blanco, the Lower House was undoubtedly his next station.
The transition from the Catalan to the national legislative assembly seems to be cursed for the leaders of Ciudadanos. Catapulted from Parliament, Rivera and Inés Arrimadas ended up burning in Congress. The circumstances of Martín Blanco with the PP are totally different. He will do so, for now, in a subordinate position and with a possible novelty with respect to his speeches of all these years, since they may not require resisting whoever is in charge.