The ‘La Vanguardia’ poll and the law-and-order tripartite

Coinciding with the midpoint of the legislature, La Vanguardia publishes an electoral poll in which the rise of Aliança Catalana and Vox makes Catalonia “ungovernable”, according to the front-page headline. There are only three possible sums, and each one is only viable if the crossed vetoes that have characterized the country's politics in recent years are blown up. There is the pro-independence majority of 72 deputies (AC, ERC, Junts, CUP), or 69 if we exclude the CUP. There is also the right-wing majority (AC, Vox, Junts, PP), which climbs to 75. And, finally, there is what one of the executives at Ipsos, the company that conducted the poll, calls an “orderly tripartite”, which would be the sum of the PSC, ERC, and Junts, reaching 69 seats. It is not difficult to guess which of these scenarios is preferred by the newspaper of order. If these numbers are correct –ultra options usually get better results than the cooked-up projections– the focus will be on Junts, which despite losing more than half of its deputies appears in all three possible cocktails, even if they are combinations more dictated by arithmetic than by palate. In any case, I find it hard to see the party wanting to reach an agreement with Vox and Aliança Catalana, having fewer seats and having to assume, therefore, a subjugated position that could lead it to residualization.

The other dilemma is much more diabolical. Junts may be tempted to defend a sovereignist understanding with Aliança Catalana, even if only to corner Esquerra (who would say no) and thus try to weaken it. But the media machinery has begun to turn, and the pressure on Puigdemont's party will involve demanding institutional sense and that it does not get involved with ultra forces. That La Vanguardia opposes “independence” and “order” is already very significant, and a semiotically very cunning move.