Aliança Catalana will only govern where it is the most voted force

Barcelona“We have not run to invest pro-Spanish or pro-independence process politicians”. That is how forceful Sílvia Orriols was in 2024 during her first intervention in Parliament after Aliança Catalana arrived there with two deputies. At that time, she was referring to the possible investiture of the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, but now this path is the one that Aliança Catalana plans to adopt also at the municipal level. During the party's second municipalist convention held in Ripoll on September 19, the group outlined the strategy to be followed by the councilors who are elected. As in Parliament, Aliança will not invest candidates from the three pro-independence parties (Junts, ERC and the CUP) nor those of Spanish obedience, such as the PSC, the PP and Vox.

Advisor Jordi Coma warned the future councilors: "There is one thing you don't know and that will not happen: that any of you enter municipal governments as a crutch for anyone. If Aliança does not govern, we will not use our votes to make others govern". "We will not give away mayoralties nor will we support governments of parties that exclude us and then expect us to save their investiture. Whoever imposes a cordon sanitaire on us cannot expect us to invest them the next day", he snapped.

“We are here to deploy our project and not to prop up the usual ones,” added the party leader, Sílvia Orriols, subsequently in a tweet in response to an article by Nació Digital where it was reported that Junts was closing the door to reaching pacts with Aliança. In February, in a conference at the Hotel Palace in Barcelona, Orriols opened the door to establishing pacts with the juntaires after the municipal elections if they agreed to implement their program. It was, however, a siren song.

The Aliança government committee is clear about the roadmap it must follow in local politics. Aliança is committed to governing only in municipalities where it obtains an absolute majority or where, as in the case of Ripoll during this last term, it can do so in the minority. The Ripoll formula is the only one on the table. The cordon sanitaire that Aliança criticizes so much will extend throughout the country, but it will be the pro-independence far-right that will also apply it to the rest of the parties that aspire to obtain the mayoralty.

"We will not invest any candidate other than our own, none," clarify sources from the party. These same sources state that they will only consider coalition governments if they have the majority and another party asks them to join, provided they accept their program. "Wherever they ask us, we will evaluate it," they affirm, and underline that there are red lines to which they will not renounce, for example in the field of migration or security policies, in order to have a stable majority. The goal is to consolidate themselves as the alternative, as the first opposition force wherever possible, with an eye on the next parliamentary elections, where all polls predict spectacular growth for them, to the point of potentially becoming the second largest force.

Future councilors, without autonomy

"If one wins without reaching an absolute majority, as in Ripoll, the premise is to try to govern in the minority and with ad-hoc pacts. What will not be accepted is a government of Junts with 5 councilors and 3 from Aliança to have a deputy mayor and two councilors", point out party cadres in the territory. "In this case, Aliança in the opposition and Junts governing, and ad-hoc pacts during the mandate, because Aliança is not into creating sanitary cordons and can vote on motions from all parties", add these same local representatives. The problem will come, they admit, if Aliança is key to preventing a left-wing government. "Then one could opt for an instrumental investiture, without entering the government, but whoever ends up deciding that is the leadership", they advance, and they recognize that there will be no municipal autonomy and that the major decisions are adopted with the approval of Ripoll.

The determination to govern alone is not new. "From the beginning, entering municipal governments was something that was not up for debate, just as running in the Spanish elections was not", says another regional party leader. "Either one governs alone or one does not govern", agree all the sources consulted in conclusion. Territorial implantation weighs more than obtaining portfolios in a municipal government, with the consequent danger that Aliança Catalana has to assume positions that cause them to enter into contradiction.

In any case, post-election pacts are not regulated in the party's statutes. There is no specific mention of government or investiture agreements, and it only uses two broader expressions in relation to electoral alliances and stable parliamentary alliances. In this sense, article 104 literally says that "the relations between Aliança Catalana and other political formations or entities, electoral alliances and stable parliamentary alliances" must be approved by the governing committee and validated by the membership with a telematic vote or an extraordinary national congress.