Puigdemont’s risk

We all have one thing clear, so do not insist too much. Pedro Sánchez runs the risk of not being invested. Him, and the renewed continuity of his project. And even more so Alberto Núñez Feijóo runs it, since his blue-black block enjoys an entry with lower expectations.

We all emphasize the paradoxical crucial role that the exiled independent leader Carles Puigdemont can play on this occasion, arithmetic sings (Junts lost 62% of the CiU votes in 2011, but it affects the investiture more than ever). And already from today, when the composition of the Table of Congress is settled, the first stone of itself. And the investiture.

The Waterloo man can facilitate progressive presidencies (of the House, of the Government) or a reactionary turn, yes. But little is remembered that by promoting one way out or another, he incurs a great risk.

A substantive risk, which starts from the possible confusion between the election of the deputies and the exercise of their function once in possession of their minutes. Parliamentarians are elected by ideological-political lists. But once elected they represent all citizens, regardless of the list they came from. Or, more precisely, they make up an institutional body that is entirely owed to all voters: a separatist deputy serves extreme ultra-centralist voters, and vice versa. His principal is the sovereign himself.

This explains why the performance of the same politician before and after the election can differ —although it is better if it does not contradict itself—, since before it was a private matter for his followers and later, an investment of his opponents as well. The before embodies what he wants; the after, what he can.

This disquisition is useful in times of yelling and polarization, because the institutional prevails over the particular. But it is much more so today, and in the case of politicians (Catalan, although not only) who claim to be nationalists: who do not recognize sovereignties of a broader spectrum, just as they do not venerate supranationalities. If one aspires to represent his native country, he must above all prove that all his compatriots fit in it, an idea that today tends to prosper among Basque nationalisms. And not only one part (now declining) fits, which has been an emblem for years in the imaginary of the Catalan process. The world upside down from what it used to seem.

If the plebiscite against sanchismo failed on 23-J, in Catalonia it collapsed. Once again, as in the French war or in the endorsement of the 1978 Constitution, what Pierre Vilar called “unanimism” has been recorded. In this case, the residualization of the right and the ultra-right in Spain: it is not just a dislocation, but the expression of a frontal, forceful, colossal rejection. And that collapse, political but also moral, has occurred not thanks to the drive of the independence movement, but precisely because of its retreat.

This implies something that all the vectors of the disunited secessionist universe must engrave in gold: any step that involves favoring the de facto PP-Vox coalition, or investing its candidate, would surely be penalized by the Catalan electorate. That is the material content of the risk that Junts is incurring right now. To his intellectual misfortune, the paradigm that he revisited in the campaign, according to which the vote for the PP and the PSOE are equal from a Catalan perspective, foundered. The votes for the PSC (1.2 million) not only surpassed the three fragmented pro-independence parties, including the CUP (they did not reach 960,000), but also overwhelmed Junts, tripling it.

It does not follow, obviously, that someone has to resign from their own party, but rather that the independent elected deputies should take into account the political consequences of these data, and not only for their own interest (survival). And then, that the democratic “mandate” of the Congress to which they attend (oh! the nostalgia for the secessionist mandat that they invoked in keeping with the pseudo-referendums) would advise modulating their own aspirations. They are already part of a political body, the Spanish Parliament, in which they can both defend their positions and must take into consideration the rest of the voters. Above all to the Catalan citizens – whom they promise to defend – and even more so if they have clearly and conclusively expressed themselves at the polls.

Some may downplay that risk of a residual future. It would be worth the argument that the current policy is fast food, as Jacques Delors denounced, any achievement lasts one minute, any setback, two. But that law applies less in Catalonia, where we are rather ruminants. We still discuss the War of Succession and the Austrian defeat of 1714 as if they were from today. And the memory of the police excesses of 1-O 2017 continues to fester positions. A sit-in for Catalan identity in the form of an obstacle to the vast Catalan interest that a liberal-progressive investiture alliance champions would harm Junts for a long time. It is true that it swept away a multiple local alliance against the ultras in Ripoll, but this goes from another dimension.

In addition to that existential self-damage, you may have to face additional risks. Like the loss of centrality on the negotiating board, by actually equating Vox with the progressives. And its institutional orphanhood, since it does not head any supra-municipal instance. Being part of both the block of a Congress Table (better if a PNV deputy could and wanted to preside over it, which would focus the Government, expand its perimeter, dispel the sensation of patrimonialism and scare away the hunters of reaction moderates) and an alliance of investiture, both of progress, would give it greater power, leverage, power.

This is also why Puigdemont’s slip of the tongue is unfortunate when he compares, betraying his subconscious, the configuration of the Table with an auction. First, because there are all kinds of auctions. For example, “a la holandesa”, so that they start with a high price to reduce it at great speed until a buyer appears to marry it, the traditional method of the fishermen’s association in the subhasta del peix de Llançà. Second, because this qualification erodes the institutional sense that everyone must prioritize when addressing the institutional issues of democracy. And third, because it introduces confusion between the election of the Board and the presidential inauguration. Of course, that constitutes a political prologue and represents a stepping stone in its orientation. But in one the style of governance of sovereignty is forged, it is up to everyone. And in another, that of its management and execution, corresponds to the group that reaches the majority.

For this reason, the navigation chart of each party for the Table and for the investiture, without being contradictory, should not be exact. The one of the Table should correspond more to the procedure of the legislature: it would be better if it addressed questions of method, for example, an agreement on the frequency of meetings of the dialogue table, monthly, or quarterly, or when certain bases are fulfilled. And that of the investiture, focus it on more substantive issues (criminal and prison policy for those affected by the causes of the process, review of the current statutory lace). That they pave the way towards a true legislature pact with open but concrete mandates, that they insulate the Chamber from any circumstantial minutiae and facilitate a less noisy and syncopated government stability than the previous one.

There they are all interested (except two). Perhaps the socialist candidate will have to make concessions to rise to the top (which also), but it is imperative for everyone except the blue-blacks to avoid their mandate. To what amnesty, pardon or courtesy would the leadership of Junts aspire to the signing of Feijóos, Abascales or Ayusos? It is urgent to argue it.

So either the progressive sequence, or a circus of stowaways, or the drama of cacophony, or the authoritarian phantom that tries to subjugate Catalonia, Spain, Europe.

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