Ara in English - Election campaign

Antoni Bassas's analysis: 'The broad path of ERC and JxCat'

Antoni Bassas — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 09:55:59 +0000

ERC has used the concept of "the broad path" to refer to its roadmap to independence. The broad path, it is understood, means that there is room for new and old independentistas, for those who are in a hurry and those who think more support is needed first, for those want nothing to do with Spain and those who believe in a fraternal Spain. Naturally, "broad path" means that JxCat's path is narrow, because only the pure fit in.

An election campaign without discussing the pandemic or European funds?

Editorial — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 23:05:36 +0000

There is no doubt that the election campaign for the February elections is the most atypical in the history of democracy, for a number of well-known reasons: basically, a cross between the pandemic, so harsh, and the judicialisation of the Independence bid, so vengeful. After a government without a president had decided to delay the date with the polls to ensure health safety, Catalonia's High Court has imposed the celebration on February 14 with the political argument that there is an "intense public interest" to hold them. We'll see how this intense interest translates into participation. In fact, for the time being, the polls suggest that abstention will rise sharply. An abstention that, on the other hand, given the way the campaign is going, will not decrease. Because the reality is that, despite being immersed in an unprecedented health and economic crisis, neither the one nor the other is the main concern of the political parties that are running for office. It is as if they were not aware that hospital care is at its limit, that health centres are overwhelmed, that delays in vaccination will only prolong the presence of the virus, that the number of daily deaths remains obscenely high and that many businesses have been forcibly closed due to restrictions - many of which will no longer be able to reopen -, that schools are barely weathering the storm of a school year with covid-19, that indispensable in-person attendance in the universities has practically disappeared, that there has been a visible increase in homelessness and poverty in the street... Because all this is hardly mentioned in the campaign.

Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'Political prisoners enter the campaign'

Antoni Bassas — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 18:00:02 +0000

The political prisoners are leaving prison again today, after yesterday they received the open prison regime again. It was granted by the Ministry of Justice of the Generalitat, and it will allow them to go out on the streets during the day but will have to return at night to sleep in prison from Monday to Thursday. The only one who will not leave prison is president Forcadell, because there is an outbreak of coronavirus in the prison of Wad-Ras.