Rufián again tests ERC's patience

BarcelonaGabriel Rufián's tour to defend his broad front proposal for the left will make its second stop in Barcelona this Thursday. The ERC spokesperson in Congress will sit alongside the number two of Podemos, Irene Montero, after a few weeks ago, in Madrid, his interlocutor was the spokesperson for Més Madrid, Emilio Delgado. At the front row, he knows that the president of Esquerra, Oriol Junqueras, will not be there – he has justified his absence due to "agenda issues" – but a small representation from the party's executive will be: the deputy secretary general, Oriol López, and the deputy secretary Laura Pelay. The leadership maintains the strategy of not entering into direct confrontation with Rufián to avoid escalating the challenge. However, the discomfort with the attitude of their spokesperson in Madrid has not disappeared. In fact, according to various sources consulted, Junqueras himself expressed it in a recent ERC national council, when he forcefully showed his rejection of Rufián's proposal. The leadership is annoyed with Rufián for pushing ahead with his proposal and not sitting down to discuss it with the party.

So far, Rufián has only obtained the public endorsement of his predecessor in the lower house, Joan Tardà. But this has not deterred the Republican leader, who this Thursday will once again defend the need for the left to join forces in the face of the rise of the far-right. Although tensions are growing, publicly Junqueras maintains that he is "very good friends" with Rufián, as he said this Tuesday in an interview with RNE, and that he respects the "decisions" he may make. From the Republican leadership, however, they maintain that while they may share Rufián's diagnosis of the situation, they do not agree on how to confront it. "His proposal leads nowhere," point out consulted sources. The leadership also disagrees that Rufián places the party to the left of the PSOE: "We are the left of the country, ERC is the national left that also wants to occupy the space of the PSC".

The discontent with Rufián's role goes beyond the leadership and also extends to part of the parliamentary group in Madrid and among various republican cadres. There are several consulted individuals who reproach him for having his "own agenda" and speaking out in defense of the interests of the state left. This is a thesis widely shared by all consulted cadres. However, there are also voices that acknowledge Rufián's political value and present him as an asset for Esquerra, because he reaches an audience that the party would not reach on its own. In any case, they do not understand the strategy he is currently following, because they see it as a "power struggle" with the leadership.

The rumination about Colau

In fact, the proof of this "power struggle" is, for some leaders, the fact that the Republican spokesperson echoed Ada Colau's statements last week. The former mayor of Barcelona replied to Oriol Junqueras: "I don't need her to bless me to be a deputy." The response stems from the barb that the Republican leader had sent her when he once again closed the door to Rufián's left-wing front when he put the former leader of Comuns into the equation. "I went to prison for Catalonia, not because Colau is a deputy on an ERC list," Junqueras stated.

Despite the discontent, ERC maintains that Rufián continues to be their candidate in the general elections. They recall that the alliances proposed by their spokesperson in Madrid are already practiced by meeting more or less periodically with parties like Compromís, the BNG, or EH Bildu to draw up a joint strategy. This Thursday, however, they will again hear Rufián advocate for going further by forming a broad left-wing electoral coalition that involves presenting the party with the most appeal in each province to consolidate votes into a single option. And he will do so alongside Irene Montero, who until now has closed the door to running in coalition with other national left-wing parties, such as Sumar, Esquerra Unida, or Comuns, although her party has ended up changing its mind in Andalusia, where it will end up competing in a coalition.