That Gabriel Rufián and Sílvia Orriols are the two most popular politicians in Catalonia reflects quite severely the situation of our politics and, by extension, the state of mind, the spiritual state, if you prefer, of the country. I will not dwell on qualifications regarding their methods or discourse, neither the spokesperson for the Esquerra group in Congress nor the mayor – mayoress, she says – of Ripoll. It is enough to remember that they are two populist and polarizing styles. By this I do not mean, in any way, that they are equal or comparable (Rufián does not use Orriols' Islamophobia), but simply that I do not find them to be examples of good politics, nor commendable figures. It is also significant that neither Rufián nor Orriols are national politicians, even though Orriols has a seat in Parliament. The popularity we spoke of they have achieved outside of national politics, understood as that which has Catalonia as its scope and object. Rufián has been in Madrid for ages. Orriols has his epicenter in the city of Ripoll. Where are the national politicians? Well, all of them below Rufián and Orriols, as indicated by the latest poll published by ARA. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, occupies third place. And Carles Puigdemont, ninth (second to last). Oriol Junqueras appears in a not-so-bad fourth position. Furthermore, his party, which wins many votes, seems to be recovering from the dismal last electoral cycle. The problem here is another: Rufián is more popular than Junqueras both among the electorate in general and among Republican voters in particular. An insolent question for the leadership of ERC: in view of this, should the party strive to be more like Rufián or vice versa: should Rufián try to be more like the party? Let's add some other element. The capital change that is taking place in Catalonia is the meteoric rise of Aliança Catalana, Orriols' formation. This can change almost everything. One of the consequences of this growth, regarding the combination of forces, is that it will absolutely prevent a new pro-independence government in Catalonia. Whoever still has this dream should let it go. Forget about it for a long time. If it was already very complicated before, it will now become impossible. Neither the PSC, nor the PP, nor Vox will have achieved it. The voters of a party that, what a paradox, calls itself and wants to be more Catalan and more pro-independence than anyone else will have achieved it: Aliança Catalana. As can be seen, the general landscape drawn by the ARA poll – which agrees with other previous opinion studies – is between strange and bleak. And no, it is no consolation that in other places, near or far, they are worse off than us.

The poll we published in ARA this weekend dared to put numbers on the political reality, which, no matter how much scientific basis the work has, always ends up causing an endless discussion. Especially when there are still more than two years to go until the parliamentary elections, if the Illa government manages to complete the legislature, because the political, economic, and social situation is only getting more tangled.This is the first observation: the growing discontent would not be directed against the PSC, nor against Esquerra or Comuns, who support it, but would take the form of a historic shift of a large part of the country's electorate towards the far-right, curiously not large enough to force a change of government but sufficient to send Junts from second to fifth position.The growth of Alianza Catalana and Vox is more than probable (we'll see if in these proportions), and it's noticeable as soon as you step outside. The protest vote against everything, especially with the extraordinary increase in immigration that Catalonia has experienced, would take the form of the far-right, exactly as happens in all democracies. But the case of Catalonia, with its own political system and the strong influence of the Spanish political system, would present some elements to consider.The idea that ““és català tot aquell que viu i treballa a Catalunya (i ho vol ser)”” has been blown to pieces. A good part of the Catalanist voter doubts the strength that that powerful machine for “fer catalans”, which were the street, the school, the economy, the television, and the income difference with Spain, could now have, which without having its own state yielded extraordinary results. They doubt because countries with their own states like France and the United Kingdom have many problems, and because the mix of an immigrant influx, a digital cultural bubble, religious differences, and the marginalization of Catalan in schools and the legal inferiority of the language seems like a perfect storm for Catalan identity. And however aggressive Aliança Catalana's expressions towards Muslims may be, a sense of urgency prevails. In the case of Vox, the growth factors would be the Spanish nationalist reaction to immigration, to separatism, and to Pedro Sánchez's government, which is dragging on for them. Economic problems for many families, uncertainty for young people, an inaccessible housing market, bleak prospects in the labor market, artificial intelligence... The punishment vote, on the contrary, is served.It is not so strange that Orriols and Rufián are the best-rated politicians. To be rated, you first have to be known, and Rufián's star has not stopped growing, especially in Spain, and from this Spanish circuit, he grows in Catalonia. And Orriols, although less known, is on everyone's lips. However, personal rating and votes do not always go together. History is full of highly rated but poorly voted politicians.Good morning.

If there is a trend that the ARA survey confirms, it is that Gabriel Rufián is a politician highly valued by voters. Specifically, according to the poll commissioned by this newspaper, the ERC spokesperson in Madrid is the one who gets the best score and, in fact, the only one who passes (5). He is followed by the leader of Aliança Catalana, Sílvia Orriols, who gets a 4.2. The valuation of the far-right leader confirms the rise that all polls have shown in recent months. Both leaders are ahead of the president of the Generalitat and leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, who gets a 4.1. With this data in hand, a first conclusion can be drawn: that one of the people, Gabriel Rufián, who has positioned himself as the battering ram against the far-right, is the best-valued leader, but that the leader who is the face, precisely, of the Catalan far-right is just behind.

The PSC has had two mayors in Ripoll since the recovery of democratic municipalities. Pere Jordi Piella was the first mayor after Franco and held the position from 1979 to 1993. Jaume Camps took over from 1993 to 1995. Neither of them, however, is currently a member of the PSC. The first left in 2017, not because of the Procés, but in disagreement with the PSOE's decision to abstain to allow Mariano Rajoy to be invested as president in 2016. The second has now resigned after the forced departure of the two socialist councilors who also abstained, but in this case so that the mayoress, Sílvia Orriols, could approve the budgets and not have to revive a vote of confidence doomed to failure.

Sílvia Orriols is considering running in the elections again. But she will not do so for Aliança Catalana. No, we are not talking about the leader of the Islamophobic party, who has already made it clear that she wants to revalidate the mayorship of Ripoll with the formation she created after breaking with the Front. We are talking about another Sílvia Orriols, the one who was mayoress of Llívia from 2011 to 2015 and who retired from politics in 2021."There is one year left until the elections and I do not rule out taking the step again at some point, because I did not like how I left," advances the Cerdaña politician in conversation with ARA, who reiterates that "it is not a definitively closed chapter." As for offers, there is no shortage. "Here we all talk to each other," she points out without specifying if she has any firm proposals. And if she received an offer from Aliança Catalana, would she accept it? "I would not accept it, I am more open and I do not like their discourse against immigration; here in the town we have always had immigration, and as a site manager, I work with people from all countries throughout the region."

Orbán, the friend of Trump and Putin, a figurehead of the European far-right, a Trojan horse in the European Union, has fallen resoundingly at the polls. Let his continental imitators and those who whitewash them and aspire to deal with him take note. Here the imitators are called Orriols and Abascal. Perhaps people are starting to be fed up with discourses of hate, division, and confrontation. With hopeless, enraged, and fatalistic shouting. With "everything is shit." With those who, instead of proposing viable solutions to very serious structural problems, look for enemies under every stone every day, magnify them, feed them. With those who fuel chaos, like Trump does.

Junts has been marking a tough stance against immigration for some time. They feel the breath of Aliança Catalana and Vox on their necks and believe the best strategy is to copy their discourse. I speak with the taxi driver and the doorman, the waiter and the shop assistant, and we all share the same feeling of weariness with a political class that seems to live light-years away from people's real lives. They play a game that isn't ours, even if they do it with our money and our lives. Now they're bringing up the burqa issue in Congress, knowing it's useless. Why are they doing it? Why are they throwing hours and public resources into the trash? To spread propaganda, of course, now that the one from Ripoll is chasing them. Catalan right-wing, like all Western right-wings, has completely renounced classical liberalism which spoke of good sense and order (that hypocrisy sustained on the violent exploitation of the working class) and is embracing cruelty organized and inspired by Trump. It is the perversion of stoking the hatred of the poor (even if they consider themselves middle class) against the poor who are a little poorer and already come from home with eroded humanity because they have had the whim to be born in another country. 

Beyond the very short-term vision that usually dominates political parties and this Wednesday's discussion in Parliament (surprise: the one who got more wet, or who spread more butter, was Orriols), the Ripoll episode, in which the municipal budgets presented by a fascist and racist party like Alianza Catalana were approved with the votes of two PSC councilors, points to the questions of a not-so-distant future. Questions like these: What policy will Catalan parties follow regarding AC, the day after the next municipal elections? Will they make a deal with it? Will they not make a deal but "consent" to receive its "external" support to invest mayors and government teams? And a little later, to approve budgets? Or will they follow (as should undoubtedly be done with fascist and/or far-right formations) a cordon sanitaire policy? The two socialist councilors have been dismissed for having contravened their party's position on this matter, and that is correct (if we're asking for things, this same speed would be appreciated, in all parties, in other internal matters, such as those affecting corruption or sexual harassment). But the reasonable doubt persists: in the next municipal elections, scheduled for 2027, all surveys and polls predict an exponential increase in votes and representation for AC, in line with the rise experienced by far-right and racist formations throughout the West (it is true that the first signs of a certain deflation are beginning to be perceived, such as Orbán's defeat in Hungary, Donald Trump's low popularity in the US, the small but significant changes of course by the opportunistic Meloni in Italy, but of course all this, as of today, means nothing concrete: talking about trend changes is premature and illusory).

Enric Pérez and Anna Belén Avilés are no longer representatives of the PSC in the Ripoll City Council. Nor does the local socialist group exist anymore in the capital of Ripoll. The PSC Federation of the Girona regions agreed this Tuesday to liquidate the Ripoll executive and create a management committee. The leadership has made this decision after the local group closed ranks with the two councilors, who had warned that no one from the candidacy wanted to replace them because they disagree with the decision to expel them. Both resigned on Monday after the party censured them for abstaining from voting on the budgets and allowing Aliança Catalana to approve them. Their resignation has opened an unprecedented crisis in the PSC of Ripoll. The two councilors have left with reproaches to the PSC, and now the leadership will have to find people willing to take over the seat for the remaining year of the term.

The right wing has already advanced its flirtation with the far right. And there is no time to lose. Two councilors from the PSC of Ripoll broke the taboo by saving the budgets for Sílvia Orriols, mayor of Ripoll and a reference of Catalan neofascism. Fortunately, the party has intervened and the councilors have placed their positions at the disposal of the PSC leadership, a step towards the exit door. We all know that, in the realm of local politics, the psychopathology of small differences between natural allies can lead to extravagant combinations, and that miserable personal interests can upset the apple cart. But, at a time when the PP has taken off its mask throughout Spain and Feijóo has opted for the normalization of Vox – carrying Abascal's baggage –, for the socialists to break the democratic taboo by giving recognition to the leader of the Catalan far right was a gift to the right wing (of Catalonia and Spain) and a disturbing – and apparently unnecessary – sign of weakness. We hope the anecdote will serve as a vaccine. Now that Pedro Sánchez seeks the role of European leader in the fight against neofascism, it was a pathetic gaffe.

The Orriols surname has become increasingly popular in Catalan politics since the mayor of Ripoll came to power with a fiery speech against immigration and against other pro-independence parties. She is one of the founders of Aliança Catalana, the far-right party that is gaining the most in polls, especially at the expense of Junts. But there is also an Orriols who precisely represents Carles Puigdemont's formation: Irina Orriols, the sister. She is a councilor in Sora, a small town of just over 200 inhabitants in the Osona region, bordering Ripollès. The political origin of the two sisters is the same, the Front Nacional de Catalunya. In fact, they ran together in 2019 in Ripoll, with Sílvia as the lead candidate and Irina in a symbolic number 9, to accompany her sister. But in 2023 they chose different paths and, in Sora, Irina Orriols was the fourth most voted councilor when she represented Junts with the open list system.

The leader of the far-right Catalan independence movement, Sílvia Orriols, once again displayed her Islamophobia this Tuesday, a cornerstone of her political project, as she herself claims. In an interview with Catalunya Ràdio, the head of Aliança Catalana (AC) defended banning the Quran, the holy text of Muslims, arguing that "what it says is barbaric." She didn't stop there: "The Bible also contains phrases taken completely out of context, but the beauty of it is that we Christians know how to contextualize and update them; we don't interpret them literally," she said, in a direct attack on the capabilities of Muslims. "Their own religion says so; the Quran is not open to interpretation," she added, although this premise only applies to certain branches of Islam. The mayor of Ripoll also began the interview by confessing that she lives with "great hope." the US and Israeli attack on Iran"One of the most terrifying regimes in the world could fall," celebrated the woman who, on other occasions, has had no problem expressing her support for Donald Trump. In this regard, she denounced the opposition to the war of Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, whom she criticized for "playing at ambiguity and mediocrity" and for "not being able to stand up for human rights." The far-right leader was referring to the rights of the Iranian population, long repressed by the authorities in Tehran, but she omitted the massacres of the same population that are being caused by the bombs coming from Washington and Tel Aviv.

Nobody likes to speak ill of their country. Me neither. Self-criticism is tedious. It's easier to relativize, to look the other way, to see the speck in someone else's eye and not the log in your own. It's uncomfortable to put your finger on your own wounds. When the wound is open, it hurts. In this article, I do just that: apply a good splash of alcohol to see if our political, social, economic, and cultural body reacts. I confess I don't have much hope. The warning signs are clear.

The leader of Aliança Catalana, Sílvia Orriols, arrived at the Hotel Palace in Barcelona, ​​formerly the Ritz, to outline her political project at a conference in the Fòrum Europa Tribuna Catalunya, which had to be postponed from the end of the year. Orriols made no secret of her hope that the upcoming municipal elections will consolidate her party's growth. She stated that she is confident the cordon sanitaire imposed on her by other parties will have eased after the elections. Orriols offered Junts the possibility of forming a coalition government after the elections. "We will govern with Junts if our program is implemented," she affirmed, after admitting that she feels closer to Carles Puigdemont's party than to Vox or the CUP. And yet, just moments before, she had accused Junts of deceiving the pro-independence movement and guaranteed that with her as president, "independence wouldn't have lasted eight seconds, nor would I have resigned the presidency because of Article 155, which was just a fax," conveniently ignoring the political prisoners and the fact that Puigdemont has been in exile for nine years.

It's no surprise that Lluís Llach dislikes Aliança Catalana. The singer-songwriter and president of the ANC takes every opportunity to make this clear: this Wednesday, he was interviewed on La 2, where he stated that the party led by Sílvia Orriols is nothing more than "a creation to block the independence movement." With Aliança Catalana in the equation, a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament becomes more complicated, because neither ERC, nor the CUP, nor Junts are willing to form a coalition. "There are many people who might be interested in Aliança," he continued. Besides avoiding parliamentary alliances, Llach also cited the polls. "Everything Aliança gains either comes from Vox or Junts, and damaging Junts is very profitable," he emphasized, referring to the political, economic, and media elites of the Spanish state—and of Catalonia, he added—who, in his opinion, are working to stifle the independence movement. Llach's interpretation is very similar to that of other political leaders: the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has even gone so far as to suggest that Aliança Catalana It could be a creation of the Spanish secret services.

1. We want to believe that Catalonia is different, but when it comes down to it, it ends up generating the same tendencies as the European environment of which we are a part. It seemed that the Catalan far right would never surface, and yet it is currently experiencing accelerated growth, led by Silvia Orriols, who plays the authoritarian card, with anti-immigration rhetoric as her main banner and independence as her objective, thus shattering only a naive belief: that it wasn't pro-Spanish. And it turns out that, yes, as throughout Europe, post-democratic authoritarianism is growing, challenging, and often dragging along the democratic right. This is the problem of ideological naiveté, of taking for granted that we are better than others and that we will be different because we were victims of Spanish domination.

1. Adif and the train drivers who operate in Catalonia have thoroughly inspected all the tracks and identified the number of dangerous areas. They have reported that the sections of commuter rail lines that need repair are exactly 155. Not 154, not 156. 155. Does anyone think this number is a coincidence? Those of us who have been suspicious for some time now see it as a provocation every time this number is mentioned.

Silvia Orriols has made her debut on the golf course. She now has her handicap after being granted access to an area restricted to a select few. More than 200 business owners and executives took the opportunity to network at the end of Saturday's session. green of The Terraverda Hotel in Gualta, owned by the company Emesa, chaired by the person who convened the meeting, lawyer Emili Cuatrecasas. The fact is that a segment of the business community has decided to lift the cordon sanitaire in Aliança Catalana

In less than 24 hours, Santiago Abascal seized upon the Córdoba train accident to declare that "nothing works under corruption and lies," and Silvia Orriols latched onto Salvador Illa's infection to chirp that "a president's life is worth no more than that of a police officer, a mechanic, or a florist..." I would say that if these two statements catch our attention, it's not so much because their content has shocked us more than usual from these two figures, but because they reflect the confidence of the new right that the cultural winds are in their favor—the rhetorical excess that betrays those who have taken the polls at face value and are going overboard. It's impossible to know for sure whether these pronouncements will ultimately add to or detract from their support, but it has become abundantly clear that the aura of authenticity surrounding right-wing leaders is just as much of a pose as that of the rivals they criticize so vehemently, and in reality, they all follow the same playbook.

Hyper-leadership is a widespread characteristic in newly formed political parties. Podemos experienced this firsthand with Pablo Iglesias, Ciudadanos with Albert Rivera, Vox with Santiago Abascal –although its founders were different–, Junts with Carles Puigdemont, and now Aliança Catalana with Sílvia Orriols. It's true that more established parties aren't immune either, and there are countless examples, though these tend to be tempered by internal changes over time. Orriols' public exposure helps her party grow, as all the polls confirm. Behind closed doors, hyper-leadership becomes more difficult to manage, even in the case of Aliança, according to some within the party. This hyper-leadership is put to the test every week in the Catalan Parliament, where Orriols' interventions in plenary sessions are the main message that Aliança uses in all its communications. But Orriols isn't alone in the room. A few weeks ago, Aliança's communications secretary, Lluís Areny, and Rosa Maria Soberana, the deputy who serves alongside Orriols in the Catalan Parliament, refused to take questions at a press conference. In this regard, some within the party suggest that only Orriols could provide certain answers. Since then, they haven't even held their usual weekly press conference in the Catalan Parliament. A review of the party's social media reveals that most of the videos Aliança posts on its profiles are of Orriols' speeches in Parliament. The official accounts even repost speeches from months ago, highlighting some of the party's key issues, notes political communications consultant Xavier Tomàs. This is "unthinkable in any other party" and serves to further "reinforce" the hyper-leadership, he adds.