Esquerra challenges Junts to find a "viable and effective alternative" to avoid elections

BarcelonaThere are eleven days left until the elections are automatically called in Catalonia and the pro-independence parties are still without agreement. This Saturday Esquerra has gathered the local world in the viewpoint of the mayor of Montjuic to insist again on its proposal to "unblock" the investiture of Pere Aragonès: Marta Vilalta, spokeswoman for the Republicans, has asked Junts to give them the votes to elect the president. "We ask for an investiture now, with the support of JxCat, the CUP and, if necessary, the comuns, to formalise a solo government of ERC and leave the door open to continue working [to enter government] without the pressure of an election", said Vilalta. "JxCat has to have a sense of responsibility," said the Republican leader, who is also part of the negotiating team.

Esquerra's deputy secretary general has admitted informal contacts in the last few hours with Junts, but also that the situation is at the same point as on Wednesday, when the three pro-independence parties conspired to avoid elections but without yet finding a solution.

In any case, Vilalta also said that if Junts has an "alternative" to avoid elections that is "viable" and "effective", they should propose it, but she assured that so far it has not happened. In her opinion, the easiest route is the one they propose, but Junts affirms that it will not give its votes for free and maintains that a coalition government is still possible.

What the Republicans have ruled out this Saturday is counting on the votes of the PSC to invest Pere Aragonès. "Neither agreements nor ceding votes", she said, arguing that they do not share "anything" in the project for the country and accusing the socialists of denying "repression and a democratic solution" to the conflict with Catalonia.

Pressure from the local world

Beyond Marta Vilalta's declarations, the local world has also put pressure on Junts to unblock the investiture. The leader of Esquerra in Barcelona, Ernest Maragall, who maintains a stable alliance with the government of Ada Colau and the PSC, said that "enough" of the current situation and called for an end to the "blocking attitudes". "They are not admissible", he said, accusing Carles Puigdemont's party of negotiating for small "interests". "The country should be above this", he said.

The mayor of Sant Cugat, Mireia Ingla, also insisted on the same line. Using as a model the city councils in which, for example, she governs with the CUP and the PSC, she urged the rest of the political parties to unblock the investiture of the leader of Esquerra.

Maragall and Ingla were accompanied in the photograph by other republican mayors, such as the mayor of Figueres, Agnès Lladó; the mayor of Lleida, Miquel Pueyo; the president of the Lleida Provincial Council, Joan Talarn; and the head of the opposition in the Barcelona Provincial Council, Dionís Guiteras.