Fed up with all of us

In a country that is doing badly, with a minority Generalitat government and too many open fronts, one might think that Catalan sovereignty has a window of opportunity to regain prominence and raise the level of national ambition. Instead, the parties that led the Procés – Junts and ERC – are competing in their own ring, in a bubble that only interests their leaders, and setting aside national interest, which is what could truly propel them electorally. It is one thing that there is no strategic unity; and another is that the weekly squabbles between Rufián and Nogueras occupy the space and time that their respective parties should dedicate to taking advantage of the weakness of the PSC and the PSOE.This week, Junts has seized media prominence with a double refusal. The first – voting against the housing decree – is difficult to understand in a context of housing emergency, especially considering that the PSOE and Sumar were willing to negotiate fiscal measures for small landlords and self-employed workers. That Puigdemont's party has been so inflexible is explained by temperamental reasons (taking revenge on Yolanda Díaz for her theatrics) and tactical ones (making themselves valuable to the Catalan economic right). It is legitimate for Junts to want to regain the center-right space, but doing so at the cost of tenants' suffering is, at the very least, insensitive. Future elections will tell them if the gamble has been successful or not.It is more incomprehensible that Junts opposes the State-Generalitat investment consortium, a measure agreed upon by ERC with the PSOE to prevent unexecuted investments (systematically and scandalously) by successive Spanish governments from being lost. This can only be explained by absurd maximalism and by the desire not to give any success to adversaries, even if it reduces the Generalitat's resources and decision-making power. Furthermore, the terminology used by Nogueras (“We don't need another little stall”) seems more appropriate for other political options.However: instead of taking advantage of this slip-up to present themselves as the party of useful sovereignty, ERC has preferred, once again, to leave its narrative in the hands of Gabriel Rufián, who has turned it into a very low-tone comedy in the Congress tribune, focusing only on the housing issue (as if the investment consortium issue were too “local” for his audience) and engaging in unnecessary mockery of Junts deputies, which has allowed them to portray themselves as victims. And the Junts circle has upped the ante by comparing Rufián to Albert Rivera, and his discourse, to the logic of "A por ellos". Each episode of this farce is worse than the last. And meanwhile, the ERC leadership remains silent. Rufián gains and loses votes, we don't quite know to what extent, but his one-sided hostility torpedoes one of the party's assets: the ability to maneuver between the PSC and Junts, depending on the area of decision and the circumstances.I have always thought that Junts and ERC are two parties too consolidated for sovereignty to do without them. But a moment comes when it is legitimate to ask whether these kindergarten fights, which have been going on for a decade, are not a major obstacle – not to say the main obstacle – for a sovereignty that, at a social and popular level, shows much more maturity than its political representatives. We could say, as Estanislao Figueras did in 1873, that we are fed up with all of us. If this civil war continues (and it will continue as long as neither party is capable of devouring the other), perhaps one day it will have to be considered. Because parties are just tools, and in any trade, useless tools are either repaired or thrown away.