Joan Tardà is a former member of Congress and has recently published A Republican Chronicle from Madrid (Viena Edicions), where he recounts his fifteen years as a member of parliament in the Spanish capital.

The same Joan Tardà admitted it at the end of the event, when he explained that he has a "paternal relationship" with Gabriel Rufián. And not only for having sat side by side in Congress for years, but for the ideological and strategic affinity that, this Monday, they have once again evidenced. Tardà wanted his political son to sit next to him – accompanied by journalist Sergi Sol, who moderated the event – to present the book he recently published, A Republican Chronicle from Madrid (Viena Edicions), in which, besides reviewing his fifteen years in Madrid, he once again defends a left-wing front in Spain and also in Catalonia. "Don't let up. And consider the whole context, but don't let up," Tardà asked him. The call from the former Republican spokesperson in Congress was heard from the front row by two members of the ERC leadership, Oriol López and Pau Morales. The party leader, Oriol Junqueras, was not present. The Republican leadership does not buy into the proposal that Rufián has publicly put forward and that Tardà is pushing for internal debate within ERC through the internal current he leads, Àgora.

The idea of a left-wing electoral front, promoted by Gabriel Rufián and Joan Tardà, doesn't seem to be gaining traction at the moment. The ERC leadership itself has dismissed it, and some of the parties the Republican duo is appealing to, such as the Comuns, Sumar, and the CUP, have also dampened the enthusiasm. Would this electoral unity benefit the left?

"Esquerra will have to face the debate on the convenience of ceasing to be an exclusively pro-independence political party," wrote Joan Tardà In an article in the ARA published on January 2. The former ERC spokesperson in Congress turned this thesis into an amendment to the management's presentations to be debated and approved at the congress on March 15 and 16 in Martorell. Tardà proposed changing article 2 of the party statutes, which defines what Esquerra is. The leadership was reluctant and, as ARA has been able to learn from informed sources, the former Republican deputy has finally given up on modifying the statutes, but the executive headed by Oriol Junqueras has promised to make a counterproposal to incorporate it into the strategic report. In this way, the party closes the debate on modifying the statutes, but another one opens: Should ERC be a party only for independentists?