The candidate of the People's Party for the election to the Parliament of Catalonia on May 12th, Alejandro Fernández, has arrived at the mid-point of the election campaign without many discursive developments, but in a certain way he broadened his focus this Friday, in an event in the town of Mataró in which he repeated his attacks on Salvador Illa and Pedro Sánchez and also on Carles Puigdemont, but in which he also conjured the image of Pablo Iglesias in a long diatribe against what the PP considers to be populism. The event was also attended by Dolors Montserrat, once again candidate for the PP in the European elections on June 9th, and the party president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who continues to see Catalonia as a springboard for reaching the Spanish government.
With the polls in agreement that the PP are likely to multiply their historically-low current representation (3 MPs) by at least a factor of three, maybe even a factor of five, Fernández has in recent days intensified his attacks on the Socialist (PSC) candidate Salvador Illa. The pollsters take it for granted that the Spanish conservatives are likely to pick up most of the collapsing vote of Ciudadanos (current holders of 6 seats), but beyond that, it is in Socialist waters that the People's Party hopes to increase its catch. The PP candidate likes to accompany his mentions of Illa with a characterisation: "Neither a bad word, nor a good deed", as Fernández puts it, explaining that "under an aura of supposed moderation, Illa dedicates himself to whitewashing and resurrecting separatism". After recalling that in the Spanish elections of July 2023, the PP beat both Junts and ERC in votes in Catalonia, he notes that "just when the independence process was considered to have been liquidated, Sánchez and Illa have resurrected them". And thus, he defines the leaders of Spanish and Catalan Socialism as "pyromaniac firemen".
Fernández also railed against populism this Friday, a political classification from which he excludes the PP, pointing out that it is a kind of politics that "destroys everything it touches". "The first populist was Pablo Iglesias and his boys and they seemed invincible but you shouldn't be afraid of them, and in the end they themselves were the caste that they had accused the rest of being, and we sent them home", said the PP candidate, affirming that "the next populists are Puigdemont and his boys, we saw it on the September 6th and 7th (2017) with the so-called transitory laws in a plenum in which Puigdemont became plenipotentiary leader". Finally, Fernández pointed out that "Sánchez has now shamelessly become a populist, in the image and likeness of Puigdemont". The current Spanish PM "has authoritarian tendencies", affirms Fernández.
"Would the PP candidate 'do a Sirera?'"
PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo affirmed from Mataró that "a vote for the PP is worth two, because it is what makes both the independence movement and Sanchismo the most uncomfortable". But what about the possibility of the PP repeating its action in the Barcelona city council last year? There, in order to prevent the pro-independence candidate, Xavier Trias, from taking control of the city government, the PP municipal leader Daniel Sirera collaborated with two other arch-enemies: giving his votes to the Catalan Socialists of Jaume Collboni, while also acting in tacit collaboration with the Comuns of Ada Colau. In an interview this week with ElNacional.cat, Alejandro Fernández was asked: If the post-election arithmetic was right, would you be prepared to "do a Sirera"?
Fernández: "I agreed with what Daniel Sirera did, because he cast a responsible vote and did something that people won't forget. And Mr Trias was seriously mistaken. If you want to get the support of the People's Party, why do you reach an agreement with the Republican Left the day before the investiture? It's that they're insulting you, frankly. If you want to get the PP vote, you cannot make an agreement with ERC. It's obvious, PP and ERC, that is water and oil.
El Nacional: Therefore, should a similar situation arise, this door is open?
Fernández: "I repeat it again, it's that I think that local politics and regional politics are radically different scenarios. I am running to be president of the Generalitat of Catalonia. I know it's not an easy task for me, but we'll see what happens. Life has its surprises."
So the PP candidate seems reluctant to rule out a scenario of helping to invest the Socialists, which undercuts some of his anti-Illa rhetoric. On the other hand, the PP's chances of being able to play such a card are very slim, according to the polls, where the most likely scenarios are a left-wing tripartite or another pro-independence government. In either of those cases, the PP's expanded representation in Parliament, whether it occupies nine seats or even as many as 15, does not seem destined to have a say in deciding the next president of the Generalitat.