Rufián and Junqueras get on the same stage to start the race towards 29-N with darts at Junts and the PSC

BadalonaIt has taken almost a month since ERC closed its list for November 29 for Gabriel Rufián and Oriol Junqueras to have stepped onto a stage together. In fact, the republicans' first pre-campaign event two weeks ago was shared: Irene Montero and Gabriel Rufián starred in their first joint event in Barcelona—this Saturday they did so in Madrid. It was not until this Sunday that ERC organized its first pre-campaign event in Badalona, bringing the party president, Oriol Junqueras, onto the stage. This is the first rally that Junqueras and Rufián have shared after weeks of tension over the lists for November 29 and the attempt at a common left-wing front that the republican candidate has advocated for months.

After a hug on stage, both closed ranks with the republican project for November 29 and agreed on firing darts at Junts and the PSC. The goal, for the republicans, is to try to counteract the useful vote effect of the socialists in Catalonia and defend the negotiating strategy in Madrid against Junts.

And all of this, ERC will do while trying to reap the benefits of the alliance with Podemos that Rufián reaffirmed this Sunday. To highlight it and to defend ERC's involvement in trying to stop a PP and Vox government in the State, Rufián again cited Lluís Companys, Francesc Macià, and Salvador Seguí. "We carry it in our blood [...]. It is part of our history, we are being consistent," he defended. "We are here to win. We want to win not by making alphabet soup, we are not coming to mix parties from here and there to hand out chairs," added, in his turn, Oriol Junqueras, in a dart at the Broad Front coalition led by Ada Colau.

"It is better to have people in favor of the right to self-determination with us, rather than those who say they are patriots and vote with PP and Vox against the working class," added Rufián, in allusion to Junts. In fact, the republican candidate dedicated a good part of his speech to attacking Carles Puigdemont's party and using the usual darts: he denounced that the juntaires vote with the PP and Vox on issues such as, for example, housing decrees; and he also once again attacked the "in exchange for nothing" that the juntaires used to criticize ERC's negotiating strategy.

Junqueras had previously joined in, asserting that "one cannot trust the people from Junts": "Whenever they have been able to, they have torpedoed everything we have achieved for the country," he stated, in reference to the financing or the investment consortium. And also Mireia Ingla, number two on the list for the 29-N: "Junts is in the middle of what? In the middle of those who defend the right to self-determination or those who want Junqueras to return to prison?".

Criticisms of the PSC

ERC is aware that its main voting frontier is with the PSC, with whom the party is competing for 250,000 votes, according to party sources. For this reason, Rufián has also returned to defending a PSOE "subjected" to ERC. "The PSC does not deserve your vote," he proclaimed. Junqueras had previously added to this, accusing the socialists of "dragging their feet" on issues such as the reform of the financing model: "We cannot trust a socialist party that never takes it seriously."

The number four candidate, Jordi Albert, and the representative of Podemos on the ERC list, Alejandra Sandoval, who is number six for Barcelona, also participated in the event. In a speech read in Catalan and which alternated with Spanish, Sandoval defended that Podemos and ERC have "joined forces": "What unites us is more important than what differentiates us." In this sense, Sandoval defended the alliance between the purple party and the republicans as the breakwater to "stop the extreme right." Albert joined the call and took advantage of the event to make a call to support the general strike on November 11.