The unit is me

BarcelonaThere is probably no historical reference further removed from what the Spanish left claims to represent than Louis XIV. The Sun King, the grandfather of Philip V, is the primary icon of absolutism, centralism, and a lack of respect for minorities. His power in France – and beyond – became so great that, to define it, a phrase is attributed to him that he probably never said: "The State is me".

The identification of a person or a collective with a cause, be it a territory, a club, or an ideological space, is more common than it seems. Jordi Pujol was often criticized for contributing to the confusion of Catalonia with CiU (his wife, Marta Ferrusola, subscribed to this by stating that the arrival of the tripartite in the Generalitat was "like someone entering your home and finding the cupboards rummaged through because you've been robbed"). In the current Real Madrid, it is not clear where the club ends and its president, Florentino Pérez, begins. And now, as the general elections approach, we are immersed in finding out who truly represents the left.

Ada Colau and her Broad Front see the alliance between Gabriel Rufián and Irene Montero as a kind of misappropriation of the unity of the left. Sumar, Comuns, Esquerra Unida, and Més Madrid have spent months working on a candidacy that they understood was to be the cornerstone of electoral unity to the left of the PSOE. Following Louis XIV, "the unity is me" could be the apocryphal phrase to summarize what they defend from one side of the board. But also from the other. "We will team up with Gabriel [Rufián] and it is open for anyone who wants to join to do so," said the in pectore candidate of Podemos this Tuesday. Everyone claims unity and everyone invites the others to join them. But nobody recognizes the other's legitimacy to ask for it.

Reasonable unknowns

For ERC it was easier to accept an agreement with Podemos, which has practically no infrastructure in Catalonia, than it was to do so with the Commons who, in fact, surpassed them in the last elections to Congress. Therefore, Rufián has already achieved the maximum that his party was willing to offer him. But he too can subscribe to the slogan "unity is me": he is the person with whom the citizenry can most clearly relate the desire to unite the left and who even today claims that is working on a unitary candidacy even in Catalonia, to which Oriol Junqueras is staunchly opposed. Assuming that in Catalonia it will not be possible and there will be at least two ballots, that of ERC and that of Front Ampli, what will happen if before Friday Colau and Montero reach an agreement that today seems almost impossible? Will Rufián campaign in favor of ERC in Catalonia and of Colau in the rest of the State?

The independence movement could write a whole thesis on the vindication of unity as a concept could write a whole thesis on it. For years it was the main weapon used between the parties. Unity was even proposed as an objective in itself, as if it automatically brought with it the achievement of the goals. Everyone claimed it and no one practiced it. That ended badly and it does not seem that the fate of the left of the PSOE will be much better now.