“We have not run to invest pro-Spanish or pro-independence process politicians”. That is how forceful Sílvia Orriols was in 2024 during her first intervention in Parliament after Aliança Catalana arrived there with two deputies. At that time, she was referring to the possible investiture of the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, but now this path is the one that Aliança Catalana plans to adopt also at the municipal level. During the party's second municipalist convention held in Ripoll on September 19, the group outlined the strategy to be followed by the councilors who are elected. As in Parliament, Aliança will not invest candidates from the three pro-independence parties (Junts, ERC and the CUP) nor those of Spanish obedience, such as the PSC, the PP and Vox.

The leadership of Aliança Catalana has nipped in the bud an internal revolt by militants from different regions who were demanding more internal democracy. The trigger was a letter promoted and signed by these affiliates, in which they demanded that the party's participation in the general elections be put to a vote. A debate that the president of the organization, Sílvia Orriols, stopped in its tracks by threatening to leave the party if the leadership opted to make the leap to Congress. "The day the governing committee decides otherwise, I will tear up my membership card and go back to working as an administrative assistant in the private sector," she wrote in a tweet, facing the rumblings from part of the base and even some members of the leadership who were defending it privately.

Parliamentary boycott and the destabilization of the State are the cornerstones of Alhora, the clearly pro-independence project that is running in the general elections for the first time. For the moment, the party led by Jordi Graupera has secured the endorsements needed to run in the elections, tripling (16,000) those required. Alhora debuted in the last Catalan elections but suffered a significant setback, ending up with only 13,000 votes, 0.4% of the total. The presidential candidate believes that one situation cannot be equated with the other: "Two years ago we were six founders, six days later they called the elections and six weeks later was the polling day; now we have 650 militants, we have 1,200 volunteers and we hold large events and campaigns. We have obtained more endorsements than votes two years ago; the growth is obvious".

Jaume Valls, who was dismissed as coordinator of the ANC in Vilassar de Mar when he was named mayoral candidate for Aliança Catalana, is not throwing in the towel. The activist has asked the ANC's deontological committee to clarify whether the economic and administrative management commission, which is the body that communicated his dismissal, has the authority to remove him as coordinator. "What I question is that an administrative commission acts as both judge and party. The ANC has always been a guarantor, and in this case, someone has decided without taking the regulations into account," Valls denounces in a conversation with ARA. "And my rights have not been respected, nor those of the members in Vilassar who voted for me," he adds, visibly angry at the decision adopted by the entity's leadership.

At the gates of the elections, the ERC candidate, Gabriel Rufián, publishes How to beat the fascists (Ara Llibres), in which he breaks down the keys to combat the far right and, in this way, avoid a victory for the PP with the support of Vox on 29-N. Below, we offer you a decalogue with the most important ideas of this work that distills the sharp style of the republican leader:

Aware that to reach the Moncloa he needs to achieve a good result in Catalonia, where 48 of the 350 seats at stake are distributed, the PP candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has returned to Barcelona in what is his third visit in just one month. In the first pre-campaign event, the Popular Party's presidential hopeful surrounded himself with the party's top brass in Catalonia to try to stop the rise of Vox.

"Let them hear it loud and clear: I love you". This is how the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, addressed his wife during a rally in Fuenlabrada following the federal committee meeting that approved the PSOE's candidate lists for November 29th. In an event charged with high emotion, Sánchez began his speech by referring to Begoña Gómez, his wife, who is facing trial and was seated in the front row. "They have tried to break us in every way and have achieved just the opposite. Today we are more united and stronger than ever. Let them hear it loud and clear: I love you," he declared, while also thanking her for being his wife and the mother of his daughters. Then Gómez went up to the stage, and they hugged and kissed before the audience's ovation. Later, he made a post saying that he loves her with the video of the scene.

A year ago in an interview with La Vanguardia, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, maintained that, despite the differences regarding the national question, Aliança and his party had important points in common. "There is no clash because at this moment Aliança is focused on criticizing illegal immigration and not so much on separatist ambition," said Abascal. "Aliança's anti-immigration discourse is good news about how Spanish society is changing and how Catalonia is also changing. These truly important concerns will unite the Spanish people, and in Catalonia, this is happening in an accelerated way. The rejection of mass immigration of people influenced by Islamic fanaticism will unify Spain."

Jaume Valls is no longer the coordinator of the ANC in Vilassar de Mar. As learned by ARA, the Assembly informed him that he was being dismissed as the entity's top representative in the Maresme town after it was made public that he will be the mayoral candidate for Aliança Catalana. It did so on September 30th, just two days after ARA published that Valls called Sílvia Orriols' party "fascist" when he was secretary of the entity in April 2024. Sources from the Assembly explained that the procedure to dismiss him was already underway and that it was not adopted before the publication of the article because the body responsible for making his removal effective first had to meet. The dismissal was carried out via an email in which he was informed that it was incompatible to be a candidate for a party and at the same time hold a position in the entity, as established by the internal regulations.

The PSC would win the Spanish elections again as it did in 2023, with an incontestable victory like the one it achieved three years ago. This is the forecast made by the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO) a month and a half before the elections. Salvador Illa's party would also win the Catalan elections, but with a narrower margin than in 2024, with ERC and Aliança Catalana fighting for second place. This is clear from the second barometer of 2026, which was presented this Wednesday with a survey conducted between September 1st and October 5th, just the day before Pedro Sánchez called early elections.

Political earthquake in the Alt Empordà. The municipal government of Junts, led by Lídia Ferrer, has decided to keep Roger Pinart, the councillor of El Port de la Selva who chose the swastika over the espadrille, in one of the latest controversies related to Aliança Catalana. The leadership of Carles Puigdemont's party has demanded the immediate dismissal of Pinart –who is not a member of Junts but is part of the municipal executive–, but Ferrer has decided to give him "total support". In statements to ARA, Ferrer defends his "magnificent work as councillor for Security" at the city council, where he is the second deputy mayor, and downplays his controversial tweet in favor of the swastika. The mayor admits the clash with the Junts leadership, but makes it clear that she will in no case dismiss him and that the party must respect her decision.

The early call for elections in Spain will not change Aliança Catalana's decision not to run. Neither will the good electoral prospects of Sílvia Orriols' party, which polls, such as this weekend's in La Vanguardia, place as the second force in Parliament. The resolution adopted by the governing committee is firm, although some members of the leadership do privately argue for running in the general elections so as not to leave their electorate orphaned. "There is no debate," insist party sources, however.

Aliança Catalana presented eight new candidates for the municipal elections during the II Municipalist Convention held in Ripoll two Saturdays ago. One of them is Jaume Valls, who will be the mayoral candidate for Vilassar de Mar. An incorporation, to say the least controversial, like other signings made by Sílvia Orriols' party, which never tires of repeating that they do not place “cordons sanitaires for the past” on their candidates and that what prevails is that they share the party's project “here and now”. “People evolve,” she adds when the profile of some list leaders is reproached to her.

Surprise at the Parliament's Board of Spokespersons. Aliança Catalana supported Vox this Tuesday in an attempt to prevent the spokesperson for the Spanish nationalist party, Joan Garriga, from being admonished for his insults against Lluís Companys, calling him a murderer. Despite the combined votes of these two parties and the PP, the proposal from Garriga's party did not go through and the sanction remains. Nevertheless, during the press conference before the media, Garriga thanked these two parties for their support for his request that the Bureau reconsider the sanction for violating the code of conduct.

This Friday, hundreds of anti-fascists demonstrated against the Vox event in Barcelona, where their leader, Santiago Abascal, had not appeared for two years. This has been the third mobilization by the far-left in just seven days. On Thursday the 10th, they took to the streets en masse to boycott the Aliança Catalana event at the Fossar de les Moreres, and the following day they did so again against the ultra-right group Núcleo Nacional, which held a rally with fascist salutes and slogans. In all three counter-demonstrations, incidents occurred and the Mossos d'Esquadra charged to prevent clashes with those organizing the events. But what are both sides seeking with their calls to action?

“I believe in Vilanova i la Geltrú. I believe in its people. And I believe that the best of Vilanova i la Geltrú is yet to be written,” stated Xavier Cusiné during his presentation as the mayoral candidate for Aliança Catalana on June 20th. He will not write it with Sílvia Orriols' party. As ARA has learned, Cusiné has decided to step down from the candidacy, citing "personal reasons," although disagreements with the party's organization secretary, Oriol Gès, could be behind his departure. "They couldn't even stand each other, and this isn't something new," sources from the party state.

Anti-processist, pro-Israeli and Islamophobic. With this calling card, it was not difficult to foresee that Joan Carretero would support Aliança Catalana, as has ended up happening. He is the first former minister of the Generalitat to publicly position himself in favor of Sílvia Orriols' party. He announced it in a tweet just after the Diada following the insults that the party leader received during the anti-fascist protests at the Fossar and the September 11th demonstration, and also due to an incident she suffered in Puigcerdà. "These days AC has gained, at least, 1 vote: the shouts of “Jew” at Sílvia Orriols and the tugging this morning by a Moorish son of a bitch (redundancy) who wanted to steal the chain I wear around my neck with the Magen David have made up my mind," he wrote in reference to the Star of David, the six-pointed symbol associated with the Jewish people and Judaism, which he wore around his neck. "Maybe they won't change anything, however, this pisses off everyone who has filled Catalonia with thieves, rapists and murderers. I continue with the thought that one cannot participate in the Spanish institutions in Catalonia. We will annoy the processists," he added in the tweet.

Neither ideas, nor project, nor future. This is the diagnosis made by the opinion group Ripoll Futur!, which was created four years ago to talk about the challenges of the Ripoll capital and which is now considering presenting a candidacy in the next municipal elections. Its promoters were Alícia Reina; Eudald Casas, president of ERC in Ripoll; Pere Jordi Piella, former PSC mayor from 1979 to 1993, and the journalist Jordi Altesa, but now they already total about twenty people eager to collaborate. "We are now enough to consider making the leap to institutional politics, although there is fear because Aliança is a steamroller," says Altesa, who acts as spokesperson for this civic movement that brings together people of a progressive nature. The polarization experienced in Ripoll, between detractors and supporters of Mayor Sílvia Orriols, is an obstacle to people getting involved, as the precursors admit.

"We have won and we have ensured that Núcleo Nacional could not hold their event." In this way, one of the members of the Anti-fascist Coordinator of Barcelona celebrated that the far-right organization had not been able to hold the rally at Plaça Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer, which the ultra-rightists had renamed with the Spanish version of the poet's name in their calls. The eighty fascists who supported the call had to settle for holding their event at the corner of Carrer Mallorca and Roger de Flor, a hundred meters away from the square. They were prevented from doing so by the three thousand anti-fascists, the majority from the pro-independence left, who managed to occupy the square after dodging various police checkpoints.

Aliança Catalana was able to hold the floral offering at the Fossar de les Moreres normally last year. About thirty militants from Arran tried to access the historic site to boycott the event, but the Mossos d'Esquadra prevented them from doing so. This Diada, however, things have not been so calm.