Salvador Illa enters the pre-campaign: "PP, Vox and Junts are a single vote"

BarcelonaChange of tone from Salvador Illa. This Wednesday was the first plenary session of Parliament after the total amnesty for Carles Puigdemont and the exiles, but also after the early general election in Spain, and the President of the Generalitat has fully entered into the pre-election campaign during the control session. The socialist leader, and great defender of Pedro Sánchez, has referred time and again to the Spanish elections on November 29th and has strongly attacked the opposition. "Three acronyms, PP, Vox, and Junts, and one single vote: blocking access to housing," he snapped, in reference to the two decrees that the three parties rejected last week.

The party of Carles Puigdemont, however, has not eased its criticism either, and Junts member Mònica Sales has even questioned the continuity of Illa's presidency. "How can the legislature end if he cannot fulfill the investiture agreements? Will his partners continue to support him?" she asked, without getting any response. She was referring to the new financing, the forgiveness of part of the debt of the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA), and the transfer of Rodalies, among other commitments that have been left up in the air due to the calling of elections – although the new financing model was already heading for failure with Sánchez in government due to the 'no' vote, precisely, from the Junts members. She also criticized the fact that the failure of the housing decrees was used by Sánchez as an "excuse" to bring forward the elections.

The endorsement of the amnesty

Be that as it may, the main tug-of-war with the head of the socialist executive has been precisely over the amnesty. Sales has claimed the "great victory of the independence movement" after nine years of repression, while the president has also attributed the merit to himself: "Political normalization is a victory for everyone, it is a victory for coexistence. A little humility, everyone". Sales retorted by demanding that he "not make a fool of himself" and reminded him of his phrase in Spanish from three years ago: "neither amnesty nor anything of the sort": "You changed the meaning of your vote when you needed the seven votes from Junts".

The pre-campaign dynamic has gone in crescendo. To the point that it has reached the dichotomy that has resonated several times within the hemicycle: "Either a progressive coalition or an involutionary coalition, the question is where you stand", he said to the Junts members. "I hope that on November 29 the progressive coalition wins in all of Spain and we are all on the right side of history", he added. And he also wanted to launch another warning: "Do you intend to solve what your political formation did not solve with PP and Vox?", he said.

From the ERC bench, its leader in the Catalan chamber, Josep Maria Jové, has again claimed self-determination to resolve the Catalan political conflict after the endorsement of the amnesty. Illa, for his part, has limited himself to defending "returning to politics what is politics", but wanted to highlight his "ideas contrary to the self-determination referendum".

On the other hand, in his response to the PP, the president of the Generalitat has taken to attacking the leader of the state-level popular party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, but also the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and her "scandal" with the luxury penthouse. Alejandro Fernández's criticisms were directed at the star proposal that Illa launched last week regarding housing, which involves a joint purchase between the Catalan administration and citizens over 40 years old. Illa, however, dodged the issue by recalling a recent mistake by Feijóo, when he said "green nitrogen" instead of green hydrogen: "Nitrogen is one thing and hydrogen is another".

From Rodalies to housing

Faced with a new day of chaos on the Rodalies commuter rail service, Illa has dodged the request from Junts to dismiss the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque. However, he did pick up the gauntlet of questions from the Comuns and the CUP regarding housing to defend the government's work in this area. In fact, he has even opened himself up to accepting the CUP's proposal to hold a meeting to discuss measures to put an end to the housing crisis.

Illa also took a very harsh tone against the far-right. He branded the president of the Vox parliamentary group, Ignacio Garriga, a "fraud" and the leader of Aliança Catalana, Sílvia Orriols, a "demagogue." Furthermore, after the mayor of Ripoll focused her speech on the first anniversary of the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, and defended the response of Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli executive, Illa rhetorically asked whether the Catalan far-right receives funding from Tel Aviv or related entities. "Who commissioned this speech from you? I do not lower my pants, and neither should you," he said.