The hangover of the agreement between Podemos and Sumir to run together in the general elections of 23J and the preparations of all the parties for the elections have marked the political Saturday in Catalonia. One of the leaders of Catalunya en Comú, Jaume Asens, has celebrated the “historic” agreement of the left and has called to “go out and win to make Yolanda Díaz president of Spain”.
The comuns are one of the mainstays of the Sumar project, and they have had to give up placing any of their leaders on the lists to make room for one of the leaders of Podemos, Lilith Verstrynge, at number 4 for Barcelona. During the National Council of the communes, Asens has insisted that the coalition “is up to the challenge” posed by elections “that will mark an era and a path”.
Asens has admitted that “it has not been easy” to reach an agreement that brings together 17 organizations and that has been registered ‘in extremis’. The leader of the ranks of the communes in Congress has asked “not to repeat the images of the last days” and has called to “go out and win to make Yolanda Díaz president of Spain.”
The competition between the parties will be especially intense in Catalonia, where the struggle ranges from the PSC to the CUP, which this Saturday has decided to run for 23J. Another of the rivals of the communities, ERC, has announced that the Minister of Agriculture, Teresa Jordà, will be number two on the list headed by Gabriel Rufián.
The president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, Junqueras has praised the role of Rufián in Madrid. “He is the one who has defended Catalonia the most and best against PP governments, and who has stood up the most in extremely difficult contexts,” Junqueras asserted, immediately adding: “And Jordà embodies all these values.”
The party is expected to ratify Rufián and Jordà next Friday to lead the candidacy and entrust them with “the defense of Catalonia and the cause of independence”, in the words of Junqueras. “In the next elections we are risking so much that we are risking almost everything,” the ERC leader warned.
For its part, the PSC has closed ranks with the federal leadership for the lists and has trusted that the Socialists will face the campaign “united and convinced” “vindicating” the work of Pedro Sánchez’s government. Before the celebration of the Federal Committee of the PSOE that must approve the lists of 23J, the leader of the Catalan socialists, Salvador Illa, has assured that they support “the criteria” of Ferraz to configure them.
The president of the Congress, Meritxell Batet, will once again head the list of the PSC in Barcelona accompanied by the ministers Miquel Iceta and Raquel Sánchez. In statements to the media from Madrid, the PSC leader has said that he respects the Sumar and Podemos coalition, but has refused to assess that political agreement.
Illa plans to campaign “not so much to defeat the right”, but to “convince the Spanish that the best option is a socialist government”, also for Catalonia. “The socialists have opened the way where there was no way”, he has defended.
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