During the weeks following municipal elections, ERC and its president, Oriol Junqueras, repeatedly asked Junts not to participate in any agreement for the presidency of the Barcelona Provincial Council, as it had done in 2019.
Turull’s party finally opted to seek an “alternative majority” which was never found, and Lluïsa Moret was invested in the middle of the election campaign as the new Barcelonas Provincial Council’s president, with the support of the commons and Tot per Terrassa, as well as two provincial MPs from Junts. Less than two weeks after her investiture, and two days after the general election, ERC announced it was joining the government presided over by the socialists. This decision has not gone down well with part of their members, who posted messages of discontent on social networks.
Josep Sánchez, Arenys de Munt’s mayor, strongly criticised his party’s decision. “It’s pathetic! After criticising for the last 4 years what Junts did in the Barcelona Provincial Council? The parties that want to break the system, those that call themselves sovereigntists, cannot act as the system’s parties do. Where is the coherence with the values that we preach?”, complained Sánchez. On May 28th, Sánchez revalidated the mayoralty of Arenys de Munt, retaining the six councillors he already won in 2019, in an election in which ERC lost up to 300,000 in all Catalonia.
Complaints about the party’s lack of self-criticism
From Terrassa, former party councillor Carles Caballero also criticised the party’s incorporation into the Barcelona Provincial Council’s government, where it will control several areas of government. “Not in my name nor in the name of the majority of ERC’s militancy. Enough is enough”, he wrote, reacting to the news. On July 23rd, election night, when Gabriel Rufián was hardly self-critical despite losing half the votes and six MPs, Caballero posted a tweet criticising the party: “On the very day ERC has lost half a million votes it is highly ridiculous and typical of a small party to point out that we have obtained 66,000 more votes than the second most voted pro-independence party, especially because the fact is that the pro-independence movement has lost 729,000 votes,” he complained. ERC’s leader in these elections boasted in his electoral speech that they were still the most voted pro-independence party, although Junts and ERC both got 7 seats, pending the final count of the votes cast abroad.
Guillem Cusí, who was mayor of Llançà in the last legislature and now continues to be a councillor, also joined these critical voices, assuring that, despite being part of ERC, he would not justify the party’s decision to enter the Barcelona Provincial Council. “I understand that it is time to recover, and one way is to obtain a share of power, but at what price?” asked Cusí, calling for a change of strategy and leadership within ERC. Xevi Coll, ERC councillor in the town of Pals, agreed with him: “I totally agree. If this is the way to recover, that’s the end of it”, he concluded. Other militants without political positions also criticised the entry into the Barcelona Provincial Council’s government and, above all, the fact they have not been consulted or informed about such a decision.
Produced in association with El Nacional En
