Glòria Freixa (Barcelona, 1969) says she is running in the primaries for her children. She exudes drive and conviction.

The new cases of alleged corruption surrounding the PSOE have brought to the fore more strongly than ever a possible motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez. At the municipal level, however, motions do not necessarily have to be linked to corrupt schemes. Political and, above all, personal disagreements also end up ousting mayors. This is what has happened in Pont de Molins, a small town of less than 600 inhabitants in L'Alt Empordà. But here, the trigger for the change in mayorship, however hard to believe, has been a yoga class.

The deadline is approaching and it is confirmed that the number 1 on the Junts list in Barcelona will be contested by four candidates. Jordi Martí Galbis, Pilar Calvo, Glòria Freixa and Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas have submitted the more than 200 signatures (20% of the endorsements, although it has not been published exactly how many each has obtained) that the party required of them and it is expected that this Friday they will be officially proclaimed as candidates for the primaries. The party's municipal territorial commission (CMT) must now validate the signatures provided by each candidate and kick off the electoral campaign, which is scheduled from June 13 to 19. The membership will be able to vote on the 20th and 21st, and the winner will be announced on the same day.

A few days ago, Floren Aoiz was in Palma, a Navarrese abertzale activist with a long trajectory, currently responsible for the area of political relations with the State of EH Bildu. Invited by the Darder Mascaró Foundations and the La Col·lectiva association, he granted an interview with Anna Mascaró, from Ara Balears, in which he said very interesting things. For example: “In Euskal Herria there is a greater tendency towards sovereignty among Basque speakers (...) but there are also many non-Basque speaking sovereigntists. In recent years, more: it is a growth linked to the perception that sovereignty offers an alternative for society as a whole. An alternative not only of the left, but also linked to society's ability to govern itself. To understand self-government in a certain direction, which is the defense of public services, the defense of better living and working conditions... A model of coexistence. In the case of Euskal Herria, the aspiration for sovereignty means that we want to obtain this sovereignty with respect to the Spanish and French states. But in the world we live in, it is also a demand for democratic sovereignty against capital, against international capital flows and decisions in which peoples have very little say”.It is so. Nine, ten years ago, when Catalan sovereignism was able to propose a true alternative, that is to say: a Republic based precisely on coexistence, equal opportunities (this implies the defense of public services and good living and working conditions), it had an absolute majority in Parliament, it confronted the Spanish state and obtained —briefly, but it obtained it— world attention. Many saw it as a threat to the established order, but this was precisely the greatness of the proposal and what made, in the eyes of many others, the Catalan Republic not seem like a threat, but rather a hope. The old order was what the Spanish state represented; the Catalan Republic represented —it promised— a step forward in rights and freedoms, a new 21st-century Republic, progressive, advanced, mature, capable of including citizens rooted in the past and those who have just arrived. A country founded on the Catalan language and culture, in dialogue with the languages and cultures of the world.Political defeat led to another self-inflicted defeat. A tortured abandonment in internal hemorrhages, psychodramas, obsessive searches for culprits, and idealizations of pasts supposedly better than they ever existed as invoked. Withdrawal, conservatism, and ultra-conservatism: the attitudes of the fearful and the opportunists who believe their moment has come to command something, even if it's just scraps. There are those who still insist on denying the existence of a Catalan far-right, even when it's right in front of them, and those who consider a poll sums to an "independentist majority" with the seats of Junts and ERC plus those of Aliança Catalana. This is indeed the direct path to definitive failure.

In a month's time, Salvador Illa's government will have approved the first budgets of the legislature. An agreement with Comuns and ERC that gives the executive breathing room and certifies that this is currently the only viable majority in Catalonia. Republicans and Comuns already invested Illa and, despite the tug-of-war of the last two years, they continue to be the partners that give him stability. Even to avoid inconvenient appearances by the president in Parliament. This Tuesday, for the second consecutive week, ERC, Comuns, and the PSC prevented the chamber from summoning Illa. Junts wanted him to appear to explain the role of the Generalitat in the crisis opened with public school teachers. Seven days ago, the Junts, with the support of PP and Vox, demanded that the president respond for the cases of alleged corruption that splash the PSOE (and that the judge does not rule out entirely that they have a derivative in the PSC).

The Secretary General of Junts, Jordi Turull, has challenged Alberto Núñez Feijóo to meet with Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo if he wants to convince the party to join an instrumental motion of no confidence to bring down Pedro Sánchez and call elections. "If he has a serious offer, serious things are explained in meetings, and he [Feijóo] knows that meetings with Junts, with the highest leadership [...], must be held in Waterloo," he told El matí de Catalunya Ràdio. The proposal caught Feijóo at the Cercle d'Economia, but he did not want to explicitly respond to Turull's request. The popular leader once again defended the motion of no confidence, but warned: "I am not coming to ask for favors nor to give them away."

The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is trying again. He will not stop taking advantage of the judicial siege of Pedro Sánchez. He will not stop. His objective is to put maximum pressure on those who hold the key to breaking the socialist president's investiture majority, Junts and the PNB. He needs them to tip the scales or, at least, to unbalance them. He is, of course, fully aware that the presence of the far-right Vox is the factor that most prevents the Catalan and Basque nationalist right-wingers from embracing the end of sanchismo. That is why this time he winks at them with a motion of no confidence that would imply, as he has explained, an ephemeral government without Abascal's party with the sole objective of calling elections immediately. What he is telling them, therefore, is this: give me circumstantial support (without Vox) and let the ballot boxes decide what the next stage will be.

The motion of no confidence weighs heavily on the political debate since the indictment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, almost two weeks ago. Although the PP resists presenting it, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has taken a further step in the strategy of pressuring Pedro Sánchez's investiture allies and this Monday he offered himself, especially to Junts and the PNB, to put an end to the legislature. In an interview on Telecinco, and after the Spanish president vowed this weekend to resist in Moncloa, the PP leader has called for efforts to be united for an instrumental motion of no confidence. The objective would be to bring down the PSOE government, besieged by cases of alleged corruption, and call for immediate elections. "Decency and elections," he summarized.

Josep Rull and Jordi Turull are two of Junts' strongmen. Former political prisoners, the first is president of the Parliament, the country's second institution, and the second is the party's general secretary, second only to president Carles Puigdemont in the hierarchy of Junts members. To the Rull-Turull duo, Borrull is now added, in a wordplay in the form of a paronomasia, at least, curious. Specifically, Toni Borrull, Junts' candidate in Matadepera. He could be the future mayor of this Vallesà municipality for the next four years. And all three have played a key role in the reunification of the post-convergence space after losing the previous elections in a town where they had governed since 2007.

It is now known that the end of the Spanish legislature will be a judicial ordeal for the PSOE. As we explain today, there are up to seven open judicial fronts against members of the party or the government, and that's if there are no secret cases underway that could appear at any moment. Many things can be said, but the only certainty is that the legislature began with right-wing protests in the streets and demonstrations by judges against the amnesty law, and it ends with a judicial siege on a party as has not been remembered at least since the end of the Francoist era.

Has the legislature reached its end in Spain? In Junts, they are convinced that the PSOE government has no more room to maneuver and that elections should be called, but Pedro Sánchez seems willing to hold on, and the opposition only has one way to force him to leave Moncloa: a motion of no confidence with the help of PP and Vox, which Junts is not willing to explore. This is the dilemma being experienced today within Junts, clearly expressed under the leadership of the leader in Congress, Miriam Nogueras.

The judicial maelstrom affecting the PSOE translates into noise in Congress, but not into tectonic shifts. The motion of no confidence, which is the parliamentary tool that could provoke them, hovers over the lower house with no prospect that the PP, the only opposition party with enough deputies to register it, will force one. This immobility is explained by the fact that Junts and the PNB, Pedro Sánchez's investiture allies with the most options to distance themselves, are resisting aligning themselves with Alberto Núñez Feijóo – and by extension with Vox – however much they have raised their tone against the socialists in recent days.

New turn in Junts' battle in Barcelona. Former minister Jaume Giró has formally ruled out running in Junts' primaries in Barcelona on the same day that another Junts member, deputy Pilar Calvo, has made her candidacy official. According to a document made public this Wednesday, which the ARA has accessed, Giró does not want to run in the primaries, among other things due to the distancing from the party's leadership: "I have no intention of submitting my candidacy for the Junts primaries for Barcelona City Council," he asserted. He added that this option has not been part of his "forecasts," "despite the requests and signs of encouragement" he has received from militants, sympathizers, and party cadres. "Support that I deeply appreciate, but which I have consistently declined," he pointed out.

The first polls on the May 12 elections, published this Monday in El Español and La Razón, point to a clear victory for the PSC, with a majority of between 36 and 42 seats, and give second place to Junts, which would overtake ERC at the polls. According to these surveys, therefore, Pere Aragonès's party would be the main loser compared to the 2021 elections. The commons could also suffer the consequences of the early elections, protagonists in recent weeks of the legislature for their no

The PSC remains ahead in the polls a month and a half before the 12-M elections. Also in the latest barometer from the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO) made public this Thursday, even though the poll was conducted before the announcement by the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, of advancing the elections. Be that as it may, if the parliamentary elections were held today, the socialists would revalidate the victory of three years ago and would aim to obtain between 35 and 42 seats, a slight setback compared to the November survey (the November poll) (39-45). Behind them would be ERC, with 26-32 seats and an average rating of its government by Catalans of 4.3 (the same as the Spanish government's). The Republicans see Junts approaching them, which would rise to 24-29 seats. The poll data was collected between February 9 and March 7. Precisely on the last day, the agreement for the amnesty law was materialized and approved in the Justice Commission of the Congress. During this period, the Koldo case also broke out, which implicates the former Minister of Transport, the socialist José Luis Ábalos, and in early February, farmers began to mobilize in the streets.

The path to Junts primaries in Barcelona has already begun and four candidates are starting to make their move. As ARA has been able to learn, former Economy Minister Jaume Giró is considering it, although, of the four, he is the one who sees the option of taking the step to run as furthest away. Lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas is finalizing his candidacy while waiting to speak with former president Carles Puigdemont, and the secretary of the Parliament's desk Glòria Freixa is leaning towards running. All three would join the municipal leader, Jordi Martí, who a few days ago officially announced he would run in the primaries, causing an internal earthquake in the party.

Vic has exceeded the 50,000 inhabitants threshold for the first time. It has gained 20,000 in the last thirty years, representing an approximate increase of 66%, double the Catalan average in the same period. The region's omnipresent agri-food industry, especially the meat sector, is a magnet for foreign labor, which already accounts for 30% of the population, more than half of whom are of African origin.

Josep Rius renounces the race for the mayoralty of Barcelona in 2027. The Junts spokesperson communicated, this Monday in an open letter to the Junts militants, that despite having considered "very seriously" leading the project, Jordi Martí's candidacy has changed the landscape. Rius prefers to step aside before fueling a confrontation that, according to him, would not strengthen the party: