Catalonia's radical left pro-independence party, the CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy) is once again insisting that it will "face down" the Spanish state and all its symbols, as it again seeks representation in the Congress, after its good result in November 2019, when the party won two deputies in its first election at Spanish level. In fact, "let's face [them] down" - plantem cara - is the party's slogan for July 23rd, a message that dominates its posters, accompanied - behind the text - by images of what the party considers is oppressing Catalonia, according to Mireia Vehí, the party's candidate for Girona. Among these images, there is Spanish king Felipe VI upside down, and, in another version, a bullfighter - like the one who in recent weeks has become the minister of culture in the Valencian Country. The party plans to hold events throughout Catalan territory, with special attention to the demarcation of Girona, where the party hopes to win its third deputy, if it holds the two it won in 2019 from Barcelona. In Girona the party was only 2,000 votes from taking a seat off the Comuns and this year, with Vehí as head of the list, they hope to get it.
Criticism of Yolanda Díaz's project
Albert Botran, also a deputy and number one on the CUP list for Barcelona in this election, made an appeal to the sovereignist voters of the Comuns in the face of Sumar leader Yolanda Díaz's lukewarm responses to everything connected to Catalonia and its right to self-determination. "The veto imposed by Yolanda Díaz on a referendum that was proposed by the Comuns and their statements projecting a very centralist vision, far from regional particularisms, seems to us a step backwards with respect to our national rights," asserted Botrán, directly addressing the voters of En Comú Podem, a party that until now has asserted Catalonia's right to decide its future. "Voting for the CUP is voting for more feminism, more environmentalism, more antimilitarism and more self-determination," he said.
The CUP "takes note" of calls for abstention
Botarán also reflected on the calls for abstention that have been made by a part of the independence movement for this Spanish election. Although he stated that the CUP "takes note" of this wake-up call to the parties, over their lack of results in moving closer to independence for Catalonia, he also remarked that he does not believe that such a change of approach will yield better conditions for the movement "after losing strength in the institutions" through a voting boycott, but the opposite. Therefore, although the CUP politicians recognizes that a vote is "one more tool" and that sometimes exercising it does not change things very much, in this case, failing to do so could change them a lot, since it would mean giving away ground to the right and far-right.
In this regard, Mireia Vehí warned that "the elections are the pre-season of what is to come after" and, therefore, "we will have to have the maximum strength possible". To achieve this, the Girona candidate said, "we need CUP deputies to defend what the popular movements won", with reference to the rights of women, the LGBTI collective, environmental rights and also those of self-determination. "We are at a difficult point in the cycle and what is needed are deputies who stand their ground from the trenches," concluded Vehí, who in one of her recent interviews explained that the CUP had had to hire private security in Madrid, where she, as a current MP, works.