Gabriel Rufián and Irene Montero will hold a joint event in Barcelona to defend the unity of the left.

BarcelonaAfter the left's debacle in the Castile and León elections, where Podemos and Sumar failed to win any seats in the regional parliament, ERC spokesperson Gabriel Rufián declared: "Zero seats to the left of the PSOE. Doing nothing (or doing the same old thing) is pure negligence." Faced with the proliferation of regional governments with PP and Vox majorities and the very real possibility of an alliance between these two parties to form a government after the next general elections, the Esquerra leader tirelessly calls for a united left-wing front in Spain.

He did so on February 19th in Madrid, accompanied by Emilio Delgado, a regional deputy from Más Madrid, and will do so again in Barcelona on April 9th ​​with Podemos MEP Irene Montero and the former leader of the Comuns, Xavier Domènech. Esquerra, as it did previously, has distanced itself from Rufián's proposal to form a left-wing front in Spain. Sources within the Republicans have denied to ARA that they are exploring avenues for a coalition and have emphasized that this is the only event scheduled. Rufián's proposal involves establishing "three or four common programmatic points" for the left and having the parties present themselves province by province. "Each in their own home, and antifascism, the right to self-determination, and the improvement of living conditions, in everyone's home," he solemnly declared at the event in Madrid, where he opened the door to forming a joint parliamentary group in the Congress of Deputies. The ERC spokesperson's proposal does not have the endorsement of the ERC leadership, nor does it have the support of the majority of the parties to which he is appealing. Not even in the summer,when he launched the proposalNor now, but Rufián does not back down from his commitment to forming a broad left-wing and sovereignist front that tries to stop the far right with an eye on the next general elections. "ERC will be presented under the acronym ERC""This is what the Republicans' general secretary, Elisenda Alamany, emphasized at a press conference just before the event in Madrid."

Tardà's endorsement alone

Rufián was quick to respond. "What's coming won't be stopped by party labels, it will be stopped by the people [...]. To believe that fascism will stop at the border of your headquarters or your nation because it votes differently is negligent magic," retorted the Republican leader, adding: "More brains and less naiveté." Rufián's predecessor in the Madrid post, Joan Tardà, does endorse the initiative.

During the presentation of his book this Monday in Barcelona, ​​the former Republican spokesperson in Congress again defended a left-wing front in Spain and also in Catalonia. "Don't back down. And consider the whole context, but don't back down," he directly urged Rufián, who was sitting next to him. The Republican leadership doesn't buy into the proposal that Rufián has publicly launched, but Tardà is pushing for it to be debated internally within ERC through the internal faction he leads, Àgora.

And what do the other left-wing forces say? Former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, who is rumored to be a possible candidate for Sumar in the Spanish elections, endorses Rufián's proposal. "I think it's very positive. I'm very grateful for Rufián's intervention, and it's welcome if it helps to talk about joining forces and creating this broad democratic front to prevent the far right from bringing hate speech into government." he pointed this out in an interview a month agoUntil now, Comuns had endorsed calls for unity, but had distanced itself from Rufián's proposal with a twofold argument: first, that it does not have the backing of ERC; and second,which added to the confusionAt a time when, they argue, a viable option must be offered to voters.

Nor have the other sovereignist or pro-independence left-wing parties in the State welcomed Rufián's proposal with open arms. The CUP, which is not running in the Spanish elections, has rejected forming a coalition for the Catalan elections. And Bildu and the BNG, two of the parties with which ERC is running in the European elections, believe that the ERC spokesperson's initiative is not currently on the table, nor is it the right time to address it, as Compromís has also made clear.