Laura Borràs is using the unresolved status of the position of speaker of the Catalan Parliament as another part of her political strategy and hers is not a case of political repression against the pro-independence movement, but rather, she has been condemned for practices related to corruption. That is the direct summing-up that has made by the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, in an interview with the EFE agency, when asked about the current situation of Borràs, who has affirmed that she will not resign from the speakership despite the guilty verdict and sentence of the High Court of Catalonia (TSJC). Aragonès went on to warn that the pro-independence cause "does not deserve to be contaminated by corruption", a statement in the same line as those used by his ERC party and the CUP in recent days: "She has every right to present appeals and continue to defend her innocence, but it is not a case comparable to cases related to the October 1st independence referendum or the political repression."
Laura Borràs, also president of the Junts party, has been suspended from her role as speaker of the Catalan chamber since last July, when a majority of the procedural body of the Parliament, the Bureau, which Borràs herself presides over, suspended her from her rights and duties. Over these months, the speaker's role has been in an interim situation, with ERC's Alba Vergés, the deputy speaker, acting as speaker. After the verdict of the TSJC was published, the other parties asked Borràs to resign from the position, but she has not made any move in this regard, which Aragonès now criticises: "You cannot use the provisional status of the Parliament as another piece of your personal defence strategy. Legitimate, but ultimately personal. Parliament must have a speaker with full powers and not a vacant post," he warned.
Aragonès is pushing for a new speaker for Parliament
As expressed by the Catalan government spokeswoman, Patrícia Plaja, after this week's cabinet meeting, Aragonès believes that it is necessary to "proceed to the election of a new speaker of Parliament", under two premises: that the appointment reflect the pro-independence majority in the chamber and for Junts to take the "first step", proposing a replacement speaker to the rest of the parties, so that they can study it and decide. Asked what would happen if his former coalition partners from Junts did not take this step and decided to extend the provisional situation, the president of the Generalitat refused to say what he would do: "There is still a way to go and I fully trust that everyone will make the best possible decision to preserve the country's institutions".
This same week, and while waiting for the Central Electoral Commission to pronounce on the situation of Laura Borràs, the Catalan Socialists registered an initiative in the Parliament to enable MPs to dismiss members of the Bureau in a parliamentary plenary vote. To approve this change, they would need the support of ERC, but Aragonès has expressed a critical view over the fact that he found out about the plan through the media. "I think that in an aspect so important to our institutions as the operating rules, as in the case of regulation, it would have been good if the PSC had notified us earlier and shared the content. But they made a unilateral proposal ", he reprimanded. The party president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has called on Junts to make a move so that his party does not have to take a position with regard to the proposal by the Socialists.