"Enough is enough: you have the opportunity to change everything": that's the campaign slogan of Together for Catalonia (Junts) for the 2023 general elections. The party, which is running in coalition with Democrates and Moviment d' Esquerres, has spelt out some key campaign lines that it intends to hammer home in the next two weeks: "No Junts vote will go to anyone who intends to continue robbing and lying to the citizens or who continues to deny the right to self-determination." For Míriam Nogueras, the Junt candidate for Congress, "all the Catalan parties that say they defend Catalonia and stand firm, which is what we have been doing and we have felt very much on our own doing so, should do the same: not give away votes to those who do not pay us, to those who humiliate us, to those who spy on us and to those who despise our language". "No Spanish prime minister will be able to say thank you to Junts in exchange for nothing," Nogueras summed up.
Regarding the slogan, "Ja n'hi ha prou" in Catalan - "enough is enough" - the Junts leader in the Spanish lower house asserts that it is time to stop allowing them to "tell us how and when we have to do things" and to stop "paying taxes at first-class level and living like a second-class country". "The election is not about right or left, it is about Spain or Catalonia," stressed Míriam Nogueras. In this regard, Junts asserts that it is the only candidacy that "defends Catalonia", given that "the strategy of a part of the independence movement has been an absolute failure, we are more impoverished, Catalonia does not get paid, the repression continues and the far right is growing." At the same time, she emphasized that the PSOE cannot proclaim that it is fighting the right because it "makes pacts" with them: "They gave the presidency to Rajoy in 2016, they agreed the decree on the EU Next Generation funds with Vox and now they have carried out the manoeuvre for the Barcelona mayoralty".
A candidacy in the "spirit" of 'Junts pel Sí'
In addition to presenting the main lines of the campaign, Míriam Nogueras explained the coalition agreement with Democrates and Moviment d'Esquerres. The Junts list leader outlines that they have joined together to put "the country before the party". For his part, Toni Castellà, spokesperson for Democrates, stressed that the coalition they have formed represents the spirit of the Junts pel Sí coalition, formed in the years before the 2017 referendum: "We have in common that we are parties that were born after 2015, that we prioritize the country over the party, and that's what JxSí is most like." "That project brought us to the 1st October and now we are heirs to that commitment", he affirmed. Castellà, Junts candidate for the Senate, postulated that "enough is enough" translates into an "institutional blockade of Spain". For his part, the representative of Moviment d'Esquerres, Josep Serra, affirmed that they are together because they share the "goals of freedom and justice".
Josep Lluís Cleries, the spokesperson for Junts in the Senate, took charge of presenting the campaign: "We are backed by the work we have done in these last few years, we have spoken clearly and called things by their name. We [Catalonia] have lost competences, financial resources, the promotion of the language, we have had a useless dialogue table... We want to express all our strength and determination". Next, both Cleries and Nogueras unveiled the three campaign posters. The bottom line for all of them, the message "for Catalonia", and the Senate spokesperson noted that in one of them Nogueras wears traditional espadrilles on her feet: "It means being rooted in the land and the country we love and serve."
Use of artificial intelligence
The poster also includes the website address for 'Enough is enough'. Cleries said that there will be a number of "surprises" during the campaign and anticipated that, on this web portal, they will use artificial intelligence to answer questions that users have about the party manifesto and candidates' positions. AI will also be used for audiovisual content: in fact, they have released a video made with this technology that they will show during the campaign launch event in which Pedro Sánchez appears (with an animated face that is not quite his) announcing that "soon" he has to explain an important message to the people of Catalonia.
Hi ha algú que té un missatge per als catalans i les catalanes 🤫 🤔 ⏳ pic.twitter.com/F66Uz0vu7y
— Junts per Catalunya🎗 (@JuntsXCat) July 3, 2023