After October 1, the independence movement entered a phase of disorientation and strategic revision. This was also true for the Left. Repression hit the party hard, forcing it to reposition its internal components and design a new political strategy: the Republicans were the first to open dialogue with the State. However, in the midst of this process, mistrust and internal disputes grew to the point of bringing down the tandem that had led the party for more than ten years: Oriol Junqueras and Marta Rovira. All this erupted after the defeat of the March 12 elections. Journalists Adrià Santasusagna and Bernat Vilaró review the evolution and the damage the party has suffered over the last decade in their book. The Republican Rift (The Bell), which was presented this Thursday at the Ona bookstore in Barcelona. "The party is restructuring itself to survive the repression, but at the same time it's a problem," Vilaró noted.

The conflict that had been brewing for months, secretly, exploded just hours after the defeat in the 12-M elections. Pere Aragonès accepted the defeat and announced that he was stepping back, while the then and now president of the party, Oriol Junqueras, took the opposite step: a step forward to continue leading the Republican party. The tandem that had led the Ministry of Economy during the 1-O election broke up, as did the duo that had led ERC for the last eleven years: Marta Rovira also announced her retirement. The Republicans plunged into one of the toughest wars the party has ever experienced, which dragged on and worsened after ARA published the scandal of the posters against the MaragallsWhere are the three visible faces of the party at that time now? What relationship do they have after the war? Has the party recovered after the battle?

Months ago – in some cases years – the research group Citizen Lab, from the University of Toronto, contacted dozens of individuals linked to the Independence bid to see if they could analyse their mobile phones. They wanted to check whether they had been victims of Pegasus, a virus devised by Israeli company NSO only sold to states which could be used to access all information on a cell phone can be obtained without the affected party knowing about it. The results came back positive: their phones had been infected, yet they had all been acting as if they were being spied on for some time. As many as nine victims explained their experience to ARA.

Marta Rovira is the secretary general of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia) and, since March 2018, has been living in exile in Geneva (Switzerland).

Faced with the possibility that JxCat could postpone the investiture debate if there is no agreement to form Government, ERC has taken advantage of the act of commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the party to pressure the party of Carles Puigdemont and also the CUP. "We need a strong Government without further delay", said the vice president of the acting executive and also presidential candidate of ERC, Pere Aragonès, from the stage that the party has installed in the Rambla de Sants in Barcelona. The place has not been chosen at random, but it was in the neighborhood of Sants where ERC was founded 90 years ago. And it is precisely the legacy of the party that Pere Aragonès, the president of the party, Oriol Junqueras, the general secretary, Marta Rovira, and also the spokeswoman, Marta Vilalta, have wanted to claim, as well as the need to constitute a new government of the Generalitat that puts the values of republicanism ahead.