The Junqueras-Rufián pulse reaches the final chapter

What is happening with Gabriel Rufián is what was bound to happen to Esquerra sooner or later. For years now, the speeches of Esquerra's leader in Madrid have sounded more like Podemos or Sumar than Esquerra. He often ignores the possibility of speaking in Catalan. He has ended up designating himself as the critical conscience of the Spanish left. His level of popularity in Spain among voters in this segment is enormous; Rufián knows how to polarize and, living up to his phrase “Less libraries and more TikTok,” his ability to gain audiences on social media is great. He has declared himself willing to head a plurinational list of all the parties to the left of the PSOE. And his party has told him no. At the time of writing this analysis, Rufián has still not decided to be the head of Esquerra's list under the conditions that the party wants.

The leadership of Esquerra has already made it clear to him that there is no question of joining the Broad Front, nor of being the Front's party in Catalonia, and even less so now that Ada Colau could be the candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government, the same one who accepted Manuel Valls' votes to prevent Esquerra's candidate, Ernest Maragall, from being the mayor of Barcelona. Esquerra has repeated to Rufián that the party does not want to be to the left of the PSOE, but rather wants to be the national left in Catalonia, the party that replaces the PSC, not the one that complements it.

Naturally, the party knows well enough that its most popular candidate is Rufián, but in these elections, that is not a guaranteed assurance of votes. Esquerra has verified in its field work that left-wing voters who want to prevent the formation of a PP and Vox government have a tendency towards the tactical vote, which is the PSC and not Esquerra, because the PSC is a direct vote for Sánchez. And it turns out that stopping the PP and Vox is, precisely, almost the only discourse that Rufián makes. He hardly speaks about Catalonia at all. His axis is left/right. Yesterday afternoon, at a quarter past six, he tweeted that he wants to represent Esquerra with a minimum of conditions and "accompanied by other left-wing and anti-fascist forces, because this cannot be won alone".

And then, of course, there is the question of the names on the lists, where Rufián would like companions with whom he would feel comfortable, because this term the atmosphere within the group has not exactly been cordial. Without Rufián, Esquerra loses out, and without Esquerra, Rufián would enter an unknown dimension, because he would have to unite a space that is always breaking apart and loaded with personalisms, such as that of the Spanish left and extreme left. Esquerra wants to close this before six o'clock this Sunday afternoon. Just in case, some names of possible heads of the list have already been mentioned. It is an undisguisable tug-of-war with Junqueras, in which both have kept up appearances. We will soon clear up our doubts.

Good morning.