Francesc de Dalmases, deputy for Together for Catalonia (Junts), has left the vice-presidency of the party following the uproar raised by the "incorrect" attitude he employed towards a journalist from Catalan public broadcaster TV3 after a television interview with the president of Junts, Laura Borràs in July this year. Dalmases, politically very close to Borràs, has announced his resignation from the executive as well as his resignation as a member of the Catalan Parliament's committee on the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation, and the party's executive has accepted it unanimously. Thus, the now-ex vice president intends to remain as a member of parliament.
However, Dalmases did not take part in the meeting of the Junts executive that was held on Tuesday afternoon to address the report by lawyer Magda Oranich over the incident with the journalist. The party president stated before the meeting began that he had gone to a hospital centre affected by a health issue. Borràs had attempted to call off the meeting for the motive, but it was finally held amidst great tension and many calls for the MP's resignation. The executive did not in the decide to pass the report on to the party's Commission of Guarantees to decide on possible further disciplinary action.
Junts had called its executive for the extraordinary meeting this Tuesday to address the situation of Dalmases after the report that the executive commissioned from the lawyer and member of the party's Commission of Guarantees, Magda Oranich, concluded that "he lost his temper in an excessive way," grabbing the journalist by the arm and shutting her in a room where he verbally expressed his rancour.
With the departure of Dalmases, the president of the party loses a key supporter. For this reason, the pro-Borràs sector tried to defend the deputy in different ways. The controversy, however, had not stopped growing since it flared up again on Monday, when the content of Oranich's report became known, and finally, Dalmases opted to try to end the scandal by resigning from the executive.