Junts' nightmare is called Silvia Orriols
Silvia Orriols has become an agonizing nightmare for Junts per Catalunya. The following year, Pere Aragonès would call early elections. The Catalan elections were held on May 12, 2024. A little less than a year after the municipal elections, she ran with her aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric and won two seats in the People's Party and her own party.
In Orriols's debut in Parliament, there was a clash with the Speaker of the House, Josep Rull, who criticized her for the tone of her speech. Rull was hasty. The fine that Tània Verge's department slapped on Orriols—€10,001—for allegedly racist remarks was another mistake. Alianza constantly resorts, as all populism does, to victimization. Orriols fully exploits the platforms, which for her are as much Ripoll as the Parliament. Social media pumps out her every word and action. Aliança groups are forming in many towns in Catalonia. The party is spreading, it's spreading like an oil slick. Often, the people who join Aliança are former members of Convergents and people close to Junts.
In February, Puigdemont opted at the last minute not to support a motion of no confidence to remove Orriols from the mayoralty of Ripoll. A survey conducted in the municipality clearly advised against it. Junts has realized that the cure may be worse than the disease. If they unseat her, they will fuel the victim-playing narrative of Aliança, which is now competing in Catalonia as a whole, where it is increasingly well-known. In March, Junts and Pedro Sánchez reached an agreement on the delegation of immigration powers to the Generalitat. The PP and Vox reacted furiously. So did the left, both in Spain and Catalonia. They insinuated or clearly stated that Junts would favor far-right or racist policies. Gabriel Rufián declares that Junts must be monitored to ensure that its powers "are used properly," urging Puigdemont's party to "remember Pujol's Catalonia for all and not Orriols's Catalonia for four."
Puigdemont and Turull have long decided not to stand idly by while the wave advances vigorously. It is essential to confront Orriols in every town, every region, every city. Turull is moving up and down, like other leaders, to try to reinforce and, if possible, strengthen their positions on the ground. "Cracking stones" is only part of the plan. The other involves addressing the issue of immigration, without do-gooding but also distancing themselves from Orriols's provocative rhetoric. Insisting on presenting immigration as a 100% positive phenomenon, ignoring its drawbacks, as the PSC, ERC, the Comuns, and the CUP do, is useless. Neither is limiting themselves to obsessively discrediting Orriols. It's looking at the finger but not seeing the moon. And the moon are the problems that people perceive as real, and that concern them. And there is concern in Catalonia about the issue of immigration, which is often associated with insecurity and seen as a threat to an identity and way of life.
The first Barometer of the Generalitat's Center for Opinion Studies (CEO) for 2025 warns that Junts is falling in voting intention, and could lose between six and eight seats, while, in turn, Orriols's party could also gain six or eight. And they confirm some of the losses. Junts shows low voter loyalty compared to the rest, while Aliança and PP have the highest.
We were saying that with Orriols's entry into Parliament, alarm bells are ringing for Junts. The emergence of Aliança—which is perfectly conceivable to grow far beyond the ten seats currently granted to it by the CEO—makes the re-establishment of a pro-independence government in the Generalitat impossible. Arithmetically impossible. In the best-case scenario, according to the aforementioned poll, Junts and ERC could muster 52 deputies. Even if we add the CUP (Cup)—four at most—the numbers don't add up, not by a long shot. In Parliament, the absolute majority, let's remember, is 68. And ERC will never join a pact that includes Aliança. The fact that a pro-independence party has emerged to its right could prevent Junts from returning to power for a long time. It's a problem of parliamentary geometry, a game of majorities and minorities, which, if confirmed, will resemble, with all due respect, what Vox is proposing to Núñez Feijóo's PP, a man caught between the force that propels him toward the center and the force that pulls him to the right.
