The activist and lawyer Dolors Feliu, with a long trajectory in Catalonia's independence movement, is the new president of the major pro-independence NGO, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC). The pattern of the 2015 ANC leadership elections was repeated on Saturday, as the candidate with the highest vote from the organization's grassroots members, the activist and clown Jordi Pesarrodona, was not the final choice for president. Pesarrodona managed to win the popular vote last Saturday, with 2,306 votes, compared to 2,188 for Feliu, who finished in second place. However, those elections only served to elect the members of the new National Secretariat, and it was this governing body that chose the new positions of the Assembly, thus ending the era of Elisenda Paluzie.
In fact, within the National Secretariat, Dolors Feliu ended up imposing herself clearly. The secretariat body met throughout Saturday morning in Vilafranca del Penedès, with the four officers of the new leadership to be decided: presidency, vice presidency, secretariat and treasury. Finally, a large majority of the 69 members present chose to place their confidence in Dolors Feliu, who won 48 votes. On the other hand, Jordi Pesarrodona obtained only 16 votes, while there were four blank votes and one null vote. The lawyer, therefore, won a two-thirds majority in the first round, and accordingly was proclaimed the new president of the Catalan National Assembly. On the other hand, the debate for the vice presidency was much more disputed, and finally it was decided to divide the office between two members: Pesarrodona will hold the position during the first year and Uriel Bertran will do so during the second. Jordi Domingo will be the secretary and Josep Pedrol the treasurer.
The new president, Dolors Feliu, stressed that the challenge for the new leadership for the next two years is to move towards "the horizon of independence". "Up till now we have lived in a cloud with regard to independence, over a period marked by the [Spanish state] repression, by Covid and the whole period since the October 1st referendum. It has been almost five years now," she said. In the face of this reality and this waiting time, it is time to take the initiative again, she continued. "We have to do so on the cement laid down by the previous Secretariat, which did a great job of keeping the flame of independence burning. We have to take over the task and make it effective," she asserted.
Who is Dolors Feliu?
Dolors Feliu, born in Roda de Ter in 1964, an activist and lawyer, was the person who seemed best positioned to win last Saturday's elections, although in the end it was only in the second phase that she prevailed. She was a lawyer for the Catalan government, having been director of the administration's Consultative and Legal Coordination Services for eight years, between 2011 and 2019. She has also had political experience, as a former member of the centre-right CDC and its successor the PDeCAT between 2008 and 2018, and she stood on the pro-independence Junts pel Sí unity ticket in the 2015 Catalan election. She has also been a professor of Constitutional Law at Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, and has published several books on pro-independence issues, such as the Manual per la independència (Manual for Independence) in 2013 and Octubre al carrer (October on the Street) in 2018.
The 2015 and 2016 case, repeated
The patterns of previous elections, since the founding of this major pro-independence civil society organization in 2010, meant different scenarios seemed possible before Saturday's final vote on the leadership positions. The first ANC president, Carme Forcadell, was elected after finishing as the candidate most voted by the grassroots on each occasion. However, the surprises came in 2015 and 2016. In the first year, it was the writer and translator Liz Castro who won the election, with 5,093 votes, but in the end it was Jordi Sànchez, who had finished in fourth place with 4,640 votes, who ended up being named president. The following year, the same scenario: Castro won the membership vote again against Sànchez, this time by a much tighter difference (4,071 to 4,005), but it was the person in second place who again won the leadership of the Assembly. With Elisenda Paluzie, the pattern of the Forcadell years returned, in that she was elected to the presidency after winning both elections. But in any case, the precedents thus set meant that, despite Pesarrodona's victory a week ago, the leadership post was completely open. Finally, the second-place choice in the first round became the new president.
The Assembly's lines to follow
At the end of March, the Assembly approved its new roadmap, which will mark the main challenges which the management of Dolors Feliu will have before them. One of the most notable directions chosen in the new document is on the promotion of a civic list for the next elections. The text of the report makes it clear that this does not create the option for the Assembly to become a political party and run in the elections itself, but it does open the option of a civic list, independent of the political parties, to defend the will of the pro-independence voters in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Speaking to El Nacional recently, outgoing president Paluzie maintained that if there was no "radical turn" in the direction of the current Catalan government and the independence movement in general, "it would be opening a space" for this list.
The text also shows that the ANC members want to strengthen the organization's alliance with the exile body, the Council for the Republic. In fact, three of the six amendments which were passed focus on this issue. The ANC voters, then, have opted to "establish cooperative links with the Council, in coordination with its newly created Free Foreign Ministry, generating a synergies of collaboration in the same direction." The text of another amendment that was passed advocates "coordinating the foreign action of the Assembly and the external action of the Council." And yet another seeks to "encourage, promote and facilitate registration in the Council for the Republic among members, supporters and the general public." And another part of the ANC text also criticises the dialogue table between Spanish and Catalan governments, with a phrase that leaves no room for doubt: "The dialogue table strengthens and unites the Spanish state internally and legitimizes it internationally."