Junts opens itself to invest a socialist president, but vetoes Sánchez
Puigdemont's party puts the economic agreement on the table and vindicates the work done this legislative term
BarcelonaJunts could invest a socialist president if the PSOE meets the demands of Carles Puigdemont's party, but not Pedro Sánchez. The Junts candidate for the Spanish elections, Miriam Nogueras, set this Tuesday the position for the investiture of the future president of the state government after November 29th, clarifying what it meant that the party would not invest either Pedro Sánchez or Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as the top leaders had said. This does not mean that it remains on the margins of the state's governability; quite the contrary, since Nogueras and her fellow candidates have claimed the "useful politics" that they have developed this term in the Spanish Courts and want to be decisive again.
"On July 23rd, 2023, we already made it clear that we were stopping all these people [from the PP and Vox], the PP won and did not govern," Nogueras snapped in a press conference. Immediately afterwards, when asked if they would invest Sánchez if the arithmetic conditions were met in the elections, Nogueras pointed out that the PSOE will have to decide "if Pedro Sánchez is more important than the party." "We already made the Starmer path proposal," she asserted, recalling that Junts asked Sánchez to step down and to invest another Spanish president who would indeed meet Junts' conditions, emulating what had happened in the United Kingdom with Keir Starmer.
Now, in the middle of the pre-campaign, the veto continues. "They already had an opportunity; stepping aside ends up benefiting everyone [...] We were the first to say that the term was exhausted. Faced with the deadlock, we made the Starmer path proposal," she reiterated.
Be that as it may, it must be remembered that in 2023, former president Carles Puigdemont already said precisely in an interview with ARA in mid-July 2023 that his political organization would not invest the socialist leader: "Sánchez will not be president with Junts' votes. Paying in advance to a guy from whom you wouldn't even buy a second-hand car is a risky sport," he affirmed then. In the end, the agreement was unblocked thanks to the socialists' concession on the amnesty law, the engine of the last term. In any case, if it depends on Junts, the key to the future Spanish president would be the proposals, and the economic agreement emerges as the star measure, just as amnesty was in 2023.
The Junts path
Will they set the sine qua non condition of the economic agreement to invest the future Spanish leader? "Of course, the Catalans' money, in Catalonia". With this forcefulness, Nogueras expressed herself regarding the question that hovered over the day, among other things due to the fact that she herself had mentioned that, at this moment, multiple state parties still say that the agreement or the reduction of certain taxes is impossible, just as they said in the past about the amnesty. "Now everyone sees the magnitude of Catalonia's strength in Madrid", highlighted Nogueras. And she even added a comment about the role she wants to play starting November 30th: "We will continue to highlight the strength of Catalonia". "This is about Catalonia, about what model we want in Catalonia. About what strength we have", she said about the elections and the horizon they will allow to open.
Nogueras emphasized the fact that Junts is "the only party of strictly Catalan obedience that is running in these elections", in her opinion, after ERC's pact with Podemos. "We have our hands free to demand", she stressed. It is not anecdotal, the slogan chosen for this pre-campaign day, Catalonia, at the center, which once again places the formation on the sidelines of the Spanish right-wing and left-wing blocs, as well as accentuating the centrist profile in the face of the "extremes", in ideological terms. As a representative of the "Catalonia bloc", Nogueras has also directed the orchestra that the parliamentary group in Madrid represents and each of its members has defended various measures achieved or halted, such as the ALS law, the law against multi-recidivism, tax reductions for SMEs or the veto on the reduction of working hours or the energy tax, which they justify due to investments in the Camp de Tarragona.
What is, then, Junts' objective? "To drag the Spanish parties along", "to force them", "for the benefit of Catalonia", according to Nogueras.
