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“It is an unmitigated cataclysm”. The clear x-ray of these legislative elections is carried out by Abel Riu, founder and director of the Catalonia Global Institute (CGI) and collected by the Center d'Estudis Independentistes (CEI), both entities clearly pro-sovereignty. The numbers leave no doubt: secessionism has lost more than 700,000 votes compared to the last general elections. For example, a button: ERC had achieved a total of 874,859 votes in November 2019. This 23-J obtained, according to the count carried out with 99% of the votes counted, 458,946 votes. JxCat, for its part, which achieved 530,225 votes in 2019, now stands at 389,548. The CUP, which had risen to 246,971 votes 4 years ago, now went to 98,075. In total, some 705,000 fewer votes.

In pro-independence circles, not only this historical downturn is highlighted, but also the quantitative leap of constitutionalism. But the concern is not only that the PSC has swept the land and achieved a historic result, going from 794,666 votes to more than 1.2 million (that is, 400,000 more votes and 19 seats).. What stings the most in sovereignism is the quantitative leap of the PP, which although it obtained one seat less than ERC and JxCat (it achieved 6 representatives, four more than it had up to now), but actually won them in votes, going from 287,714 votes to 464,319.

This unpredictable situation may be of decisive importance in the near future.. The CEI disseminated a reflection by Jordi Baeza that can provide some of the future keys: “If the processional crash is confirmed, with these data on abstention there is a market for a new strong pro-independence party in the Parliament of Catalonia”. The consequence, then, would be a third way that is currently still being developed and that would go through a new party or a civic list, as the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) is studying..

La Resistència, one of the most combative platforms in the Catalan sovereignist panorama, sent a reflection to its activists. “Participation in all populations with a pro-independence majority falls. The abstention is consolidated pending the recount of the null vote. The second electoral host is consolidated”. But the most important thing was the subsequent announcement: “Let's prepare the third host for the elections of the Parliament of Catalonia,” he claimed, while standing out among expressions of victory: “Successful activist of mobilization and punishment of lying parties. Girona is the way”. The ghost of the ANC's civic list looms on the pro-independence horizon.

Marta Niubó, a well-known activist with tens of thousands of followers, announced: “Some must have gone blank when they found out that abstention is serious. No more teasing. It has cost us, but we have finally realized that we have the power”. This activist accused the pro-independence parties of the situation: “When they try to make you feel guilty in a while, remember that they have had 52% in the Parliament of Catalonia. They have done absolutely nothing. Do not lose sight at any time who is the miserable here”.

misleading self congratulations

But, what happened in Catalonia for this unmitigated cataclysm? The fault lies with the civil war within secessionism. Due to that fratricidal war, in which the most radical sector of sovereignism demanded abstention. In these elections, ERC ceases to be the first force in a general election, to the benefit of the PSC. The Republicans go from first to third force. JxCat, for its part, resisted that crisis more because it only dropped one seat, although it left almost 141,000 votes along the way. There is another very important piece of information: the extremism's commitment to abstention left the CUP without seats, which from two representatives has become extra-parliamentary.

The ERC candidate, Gabriel Rufián, congratulated himself because his party continues to be “the first party in the independence sphere.” And Míriam Nogueras, from JxCat, assured that “we have known how to maintain our position. We will not make Pedro Sánchez president for nothing. We have understood the message. Our priority is Catalonia, not the governability of the Spanish State. We have memories and Pedro Sánchez has many duties with Catalonia, “he said. A senior leader of Junts pointed out to El Confidencial: “ERC is the one who has truly lost out. His unconditional support for the PSOE has led to the vote of punishment, which has not happened with Junts”. But the truth is that between ERC and JxCat, no matter how much self-congratulation they stage, more than 555,000 votes were left in these elections.

Despite everything, no one likes the results and the sovereignists have brought out the scimitars to settle accounts with their rivals. As soon as the first polls were known, even without reliable results, the reproaches multiplied among 'indepes'. The former president of the ANC, Elisenda Paluzie, a former ERC candidate, had a scuffle with Anna Barnadas, secretary of the Climate Action Ministry, who blamed the abstentionists for the decline of the independence movement and the rise of the PP. “To celebrate the abstentionists. We have a very cute country,” said the high office of the Generalitat. “Your party loses deputies and votes and your reaction is to blame the voters. You have an important public position that we all pay for. Think a little before you chirp,” Paluzie replied..

“Girona is the way”

There is another important lesson from the 23-J elections: these elections have illuminated a new path for independence and a new slogan: “Girona is the way”. It refers to the significant increase in abstentionism in Girona, the main independence stronghold of Catalonia. In other words, not even in Girona, the demarcation in which it has the greatest presence (the mayor of Girona capital is, precisely, from the CUP), has the anti-capitalist formation managed to maintain the representative it had up to now. It is the embodiment of the aforementioned cataclysm.

The slogan 'Girona is the way' spread like wildfire precisely at 8 in the afternoon this Sunday, when the polling stations closed and the counting of the votes for the 23-J general elections began. The result was not known, but it was known that in Catalonia abstention had skyrocketed. “Thanks to the abstentionists, who are visually demonstrating that Catalonia is not Spain”, encouraged a pro-sovereignty influencer, attaching a map of Spain with the colors of participation and with Catalonia in yellow, differentiating herself from the rest of the communities. “It was as easy as not voting, neither null nor white”. The road passes through Girona, but it can lead directly to a third way, a unilateralist formation that capitalizes on the discontent of the independence movement