A divided far-right independence movement prepares to attack Manresa.
This space could present three lists in the next municipal elections.
BarcelonaOnly five months into the mandate, some two thousand people gathered in the center of Manresa to protest incivility and crime following a mass brawl between young people of foreign origin. Almost two years later, a similar incident has not occurred again, and things are calming down, although the capital of Bages is the 23rd city in the country in terms of crime. This sense of insecurity has catapulted the far right in Manresa and, in turn, has caused Junts to toughen its rhetoric, as it has done in other towns where inequalities bring social problems to the surface. The figures speak for themselves.
The far right has never been so strong in Manresa. While Plataforma per Catalunya had already secured one councillor in 2007 (1,539 votes) and two in 2011 (2,391), in the last election the National Front of Catalonia (FNC) debuted with two (1,618) and Vox with one (1,537), a combined 6. And in the Catalan elections, the figure shot up even further. Aliança Catalana came in fourth with 2,812 votes and 9.4% support, while Vox was just behind with 2,002 votes and 6.7% support. Both forces together accounted for 16% of the electorate.
Halfway through the term, the far-right pro-independence party is already preparing, divided, to present a battle and attempt to oust ERC, which governs with the PSC and PDECat, from the council, bearing in mind that it seems impossible for Vox to enter any hypothetical government. The leader of the FNC, Sergi Perramon, maintains his desire to promote a broad, united candidacy independent of the party he currently represents. "I won't run for the Front; I want to create a nationalist center-right platform to be the leading force and be able to form a government," says the councilor, who wants to seek agreements with Junts or Aliança Catalana. "We have to put egos aside," he says in this regard, before revealing that he is committed to a grouping of voters.
Perramon's meeting with Artur Mas
Perramon denies having been offered the position of number two for Junts in the upcoming elections. "They haven't offered it to me," he makes clear. This is confirmed to ARA by Ramon Bacardit, the Junts spokesperson in the council, who will run again as the head of the list to wrest the mayor's office from the Republicans. "If I'm not even clear on who the members of the Junts list will be, how could I have offered Perramon to be number two on the list?" asks the mayoral candidate, who hopes to run for the mayoral seat. overtaking in the upcoming elections with a tough line against crime and jobs and he doesn't stop attacking the mayor and leader of ERC, Marc Aloy. He is part of the lobby of mayors who are committed to tightening the registration of immigrants or changing the social assistance system.
The fact is that Perramon met a few months ago with former President of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, to exchange views ahead of the municipal elections. "I've always considered him a point of reference and I requested a meeting to discuss the general situation in the country," explains the Front councilor. The former president's press office, contacted by ARA, simply stated that the meeting was at Perramon's request and that he simply "listened" to the councilor. "President Mas receives everyone who asks," explains the former president's office, declining to go into further detail.
From the Front, its president, Jordi Casacuberta, is confident that Perramon will present his candidacy under the umbrella of his party. "He is still our candidate, but we are generous and we don't care about whose name is presented as long as the votes and councilors count for our party," affirms the leader of the xenophobic party. If an agreement is not reached with the councilor, Casacuberta states that they will present a list with other party members and supporters.
If Front and Perramon go their separate ways, they will not be the only lists of the far-right pro-independence movement. The Catalan Alliance has already announced that it will present a list in Manresa after its strong results in the Parliament elections. "Manresa is the capital where we have the best chance of governing," Oriol Gès, the organization secretary of the Islamophobic party, constantly repeats. Spurred by the support they received in these elections in the capital of Bages, the party's communications manager in Bages, Bernat Bernabeu, says they are open to forging a broad candidacy, but always under his party's acronym. This is a red line they do not intend to stray from. But Perramon rules out heading a Catalan Alliance list: "Their ways are very different from ours." In this divisive scenario, the Junts mayoral candidate warns that this is not the best way to end left-wing governments: "The more parties that run, the more likely it is to repeat a three-party system."