Rufián will be the candidate of ERC but will also campaign with Podemos in the State

BarcelonaThe Gabriel Rufián serial has ended this Sunday, with last-minute plot twists. As announced by the party in a statement, the current leader in Madrid will head the ERC list for the general elections on November 29, and will be number one on the list for Barcelona. However, sources close to Rufián emphasize that he has reached an agreement with Podemos, a party that "will not run in Catalonia" and "will ask for the vote" for ERC. But there is more: Rufián "will campaign outside of Catalonia" with Irene Montero's organization. It is an unprecedented move for an independence party that, beyond the alliance with other non-sovereigntist left-wing parties, its lead candidate is dedicated to campaigning outside the Principality. Be that as it may, "it is an open front for whoever wants it," according to sources close to the republican, thus appealing to the Broad Front.

The decision regarding the candidacy headed by the leader from Santa Coloma will be formalized this very Sunday at a meeting of the party's national executive, and it was reached at the last minute: the deadline for presenting the candidacy ended this afternoon. "Over the next few days, the details of the candidacy will be finalized with the celebration of the different regional congresses," the party asserts. On October 20, the different internal organs of the party are scheduled to meet to approve the candidacies for both the Senate and the Congress.

For months, Rufián has been calling for "unity" among parties to the left of the PSOE, an amalgam in which he included ERC, unlike what EH Bildu, the BNG, or Adelante Andalucía have done, which, due to their sovereignism, have excluded themselves from this bloc. His acts with the leader of Podemos, Irene Montero, leaders of Más Madrid like Emilio Delgado, or Mònica Oltra from Compromís, had already stirred an internal debate that Junqueras had always resolvedmaking it clear that his party would go it alone: "I went to prison for Catalonia, not because [Ada] Colau is a deputy on an ERC list," he went as far as to say.

The parliamentary spokesperson in the state capital has had a group in Congress torn apart as a result of a long-standing division that has only worsened, as already explained by ARA, with several members who do not speak to the spokesperson in the lower state chamber. In fact, several deputies have announced that they are leaving state politics ahead of the next elections, without mentioning the native of Santa Coloma in their farewells, as is the case with Pilar Vallugera or Jordi Salvador, who has even had public clashes with the leader in Congress. In this sense, one of Rufián's requests was a group more tailored to his needs with people close to him, although a leader quite distant from the candidate, such as Teresa Jordà, has wanted to continue in Madrid by running to head the lists for the constituency of Girona.