After publishing a long Twitter thread explaining his opinion on the political situation in Catalonia and, in particular, the differences that currently exist between the two Catalan government parties, the Republican Left (ERC) and his own party Together for Catalonia (Junts), the MP Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas has confirmed that Junts has no intention of choosing a substitute for the suspended Laura Borràs as speaker of parliament, a position that has been provisionally assumed by the deputy speaker, ERC's Alba Vergés, who yesterday asked her partners to choose another person to preside over the Catalan chamber. "We won't do it, it would be to cover up and whitewash an absolutely exceptional situation. ERC decided to suspend the speaker because it wanted to, it was the party that had the key to the vote and is the current partner of Junts", he told Catalunya Ràdio, adding that the decision of the pro-independence CUP to also vote for the suspension did not surprise him because "they always do things like that".
The hidden motive behind the suspension of Borràs
In this regard, he also affirmed that the decision to suspend Borràs a week ago is linked to a second hidden intention: "The idea was to cover up the dialogue table", he said, asserting that the agreements reached at that meeting between ERC members of the government and the Spanish executive "contained an explicit renunciation of unilateralism and a submission to the legal and constitutional framework". Going further, Cuevillas assures that the meeting between the two governments that ended with a promise to de-judicialize the process and give support to the Catalan language means "the end of ERC efforts to achieve independence if it is not through an agreement with Spain through the dialogue table", something he sees as very unlikely.
A hot autumn
Cuevillas also reflected that the new political term that begins after the holidays will not be lacking in political heat: first, with the celebration of the Diada, the Catalan National Day, followed by a general parliamentary debate presided over by "an acting president" and the fifth anniversary of the 1st October independence referendum. In this context, the Junts deputy asserts that compliance with the Catalan government accord, signed between ERC and Junts, is being reviewed, with the added need to take into account the loss of trust in ERC caused by the suspension of Borràs: "The Junts grass roots will have to vote and I perceive a lot of indignation," Cuevillas said.
Cuevillas, candidate for Barcelona mayoralty?
This hot autumn will be the antechamber of a winter and a spring which, politically speaking, will be marked by the municipal elections of May 2023. After the resignation of Elsa Artadi as Junts candidate, one of the names put on the table as a possible mayoral candidate for the party was that of Jaume Alonso Cuevillas himself, who says that he is still thinking about it. Apart from taking advantage of the time to reflect on his candidacy, he is also taking the opportunity to wait for the decision of former mayor Xavier Trias, whose decision "should be respected, he deserves that reparation". Trias has already announced that he won't announce his decision until September and it looks like Cuevillas will wait until then as well.