The way the abortive investiture debate for Carles Puigdemont in the Parliament of Catalonia developed split the independence movement at the seams, in the most abrupt way possible. Whether it's a passing phase or not we will see in the coming hours and days. The independence movement has, in recent years, got out of deeper crises. That said, it's true that this time nobody knows for sure how they have to start patching up the disagreement and to what extent it's just political or also personal. The fact that the speaker of the Parliament, Roger Torrent, of Esquerra Republicana, should unilaterally decide to annul the investiture debate, without consulting his Junts per Catalunya colleagues is strange, as is the fact that they received the news via a public statement. CUP's deputies found themselves in a similar situation when, with the session postponed, they wanted to show their discontent by going to the chamber anyway.
Esquerra explained its reasons, distancing itself from the most apocalyptic visions. Now, the investiture is in limbo and nobody dare predict when it will leave. In fact, the session has been postponed, not suspended, and the statements, forceful and emphatic, from Torrent with respect to his commitment to Puigdemont's candidacy allow for thinking that this situation can be resolved with a certain swiftness and for asserting that the option of opening negotiations to explore the possibility of a new candidate has been discounted, despite the calls of the entire opposition, from Ciutadans to En Comú-Podem, via PSC and PP. The Parliament's speaker controls the clock, something very important at such moments, and the autonomy to impose his handling on the situation, a novelty after years of decisions being agreed by the Parliament's Board between the three pro-independence parties, even without CUP formal members.
The day in Parliament had its climax after night had fallen in Brussels with a speech by president Puigdemont calling for unity as the great weapon of the independence movement and the necessity to not lose it in the onslaught of the coming days. And a jab at Esquerra, who, without naming them, he recriminated for thinking that article 155 would be lifted by "complying like star students with the 155 doctrine". "That is a great lack of realism. Realism is the 21st December [election]". It was a full stop but not a new paragraph in a bitter day for pro-independence spheres moving, as could be seen in the park outside the Parliament, between confusion and anger. For some more the first than the second and for others the opposite. Although it seemed that there were few happy with the show.