All against one, and one against all. This is the mandate imposed on Junts per Catalunya to prepare for the tight electoral schedule ahead, with municipal elections in 50 weeks and, shortly after or even before, general elections. The party led by Carles Puigdemont victimizes itself to try to regain strength at the polls. “We have so many adversaries who want to sideline us because we bother everyone,” exclaimed Jordi Turull, the party’s secretary general.
Junts was the winning force in the 2023 municipal elections, but now it is considering polls that leave the party in a compromised position, overshadowed by the power held by the PSC, aided by its allies ERC and Comunes, and threatened by the rise of the far-right Aliança Catalana. The context fuels internal tensions, as in the case of Barcelona, where disputes among candidates for lead positions force the calling of primaries that the leadership wanted to avoid at all costs to not appear divided.
Junts organized its municipal convention this Saturday at the rehearsal hall of the Castellers de Vilafranca, one of the most popular colles in Catalonia in the art of building human towers. The event, which gathered about 500 members, aimed to set the course of action for the independence party with a view to the municipal elections in May next year, an event Junts views with mixed feelings: the ambition to regain momentum by taking advantage of a terrain that used to be favorable, and the fear of a setback that would confirm that not even the town halls are a safe stronghold for the party anymore.
Jordi Turull, the party’s secretary general, gave a speech highlighting the work of mayors who manage municipalities with, he says, little support from the Generalitat led by the PSC: “They have left you out in the open,” Turull said, pointing out that mayors are often the ones who “have to face” “emergency situations, the chaos of Rodalies, or all the paperwork and bureaucracy.” He denounced that the Generalitat has an Executive that governs “for survival” rather than deploying an ambitious project for Catalonia.
Turull took the opportunity to throw a jab at Esquerra and the Comunes when he said that the Illa government has made “budgets to satisfy parties and not to solve the needs of the territory.” He referred to another recurring argument of Junts, the supposed dependence Illa has on La Moncloa: “The government is more focused on helping Pedro Sánchez, saving him from the quagmire of corruption he is involved in, while in Catalonia the suffering of the people is increasing.”
Turull did not mention the front the party has open in Barcelona, where internal disputes have forced primaries to find a mayoral candidate, but he did focus on issues where Junts seeks to make its mark, such as the demand to apply tougher measures against repeat offenders and squatting, or the call for a tax reduction: “stop suffocating us with taxes.”
Turull warned that the nation is also at stake in the municipal elections, but said it is “not the nation of those who appropriate it out of hatred,” referring to Aliança Catalana.
The party’s secretary general referred to Carles Puigdemont, “who was a mayor and knows perfectly well how municipalities can strengthen the nation,” and there was widespread applause in the room, but the ovation was smaller than the one received a little earlier by Eduard Pujol. The senator is the mayoral candidate for Vilafranca and has been rehabilitated after being falsely accused of a series of sexual offenses.
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