Why is the CUP in crisis in Parliament?

BarcelonaThe resignation of Laia Estrada as a CUP deputy, a decision that both she and the party announced yesterday, This has been brewing for months. A little less than a year ago, the anti-capitalists completed a process aimed at refounding the party, from which a new political committee emerged. And as the party has implemented its new strategy in Parliament, Estrada's disagreements with the CUP's activity in the chamber have increased, to the point that the party's former leader in the last elections considers the party's actions insufficiently disruptive. This is a fundamental discussion about the CUP's strategy, between the so-called reformists and those who advocate for a strategy of rupture and combat, which is what Estrada would like.

In recent months, members of the national secretariat affirm that they have held a series of conversations with the former leader in the Parliamentary elections, until Estrada herself finally decided not to continue leading the parliamentary group. They emphasize that rather than disagreements with the organization, it's a matter of disagreements over the implementation of the political strategy in the Catalan parliament. Sources within the CUP leadership are quick to assert, in any case, that Estrada does not challenge the political project of the party or the pro-independence left. This is demonstrated, they say, by the fact that he is not resigning as a member, but also by the fact that the entire process leading up to his departure has been discussed with the leadership, and that a final decision has been waited for until the end of the current year.

Clash over the pact with the PSC

One of the most significant clashes within the CUP in recent months was the pact with the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) for the housing decree. For the first time, the CUP members negotiated and reached an agreement with the Socialists on a measure in the Generalitat (Catalan government). They did so even when the executive didn't need the votes of the anti-capitalists, since the support of ERC and Comuns already made sense. At that moment, the person in charge of communicating a complex decision that needed to be clearly explained to the membership was Laure Vega, instead of Estrada. These two leaders, in fact, had already faced off to be the CUP's top candidate in the elections: The result was in favor of the current leader of the group in Parliament.

This pact with the PSC is one of the reasons why the current leader of the parliamentary group disagrees with the activity carried out in the Chamber, but it is not the only one. However, sources within the party leadership do not go into detail on what other issues Estrada encountered with the new strategy. It is worth noting that Estrada, like MPs Dani Cornellà, Pilar Castillejo, and Laure Vega, was elected in the parliamentary elections in May of last year. That is, just a few months after the election, before the CUP finally approved some changes in the strategy and the new political report.

These changes are in line with the idea of not being closed off from the outset to reaching agreements that allow "improving people's living conditions," say the party leadership. They also consist of betting on specific battles, rather than "shooting at everything," so that citizens can "better understand" what the party wants.

Bidding farewell to Parliament with a warning

Estrada, therefore, would not welcome these changes, or at least, as the party points out, the way in which these changes affect the parliamentary activity of the anti-capitalists, which, for the current MP, would be in a direction "not very disruptive." The former CUP councilor in Tarragona has always had a combative and denunciatory attitude. This is demonstrated by events such as his arrest following a feminist protest against aesthetic pressure in a Bershka store in 2009 or the active role he played in the CUP complaint that uncovered the Inipro case in the Tarragona City Council, then led by the Socialist Josep Fèlix Ballester.

This combative spirit, in fact, runs in his family: his father is a long-standing trade unionist, imprisoned several times, and was a PSUC councilor during the Transition. But it didn't last long, as he left the position after six months, disappointed by the party's resignations. Now it's his daughter who is breaking away from the institutional position he held. And until the very last moment in the chamber, Estrada remained forceful: he called the far right "rabble" in his farewell speech, which led the Speaker of the Parliament, Josep Rull, to warn him that he must maintain "decorum and elegance." "I ended up not violating the code of ethics of decorum", concluded Estrada with a defiant smile.