Nothing seems to change much in the morass of Catalan politics, except for the worse.
Neither the exhaustion of the
procés
nor the reality check of the pandemic have had any other effect on the polls than demobilization, but the nationalist hegemony has not changed one iota despite the miserable balance of his management at the head of the Generalitat during these years of promises impossible, legislative paralysis and economic decline.
Catalonia will continue to be installed in the melancholic loop of fiction
processist and social fracture,
with the only difference that now the independence movement is stronger than ever.
Constitutionalism stayed at home, orphaned of illusions, or voted between resignation and anger.
Its representation is more fragmented and weak than ever, embroiled in tiny wars of power,
incapable of raising a solid alternative to nationalism.
That for the first time in history, and apart from the poor participation, it exceeds 50% of the votes.
These elections in the middle of the third wave should never have been held, but the agreement for their delay was impossible in good measure due to Moncloa's interest in exploiting the Illa operation.
The result of this operation is positive for the PSC, but surely useless for the Catalan constitutionalists.
No matter how fought they are,
when push comes to shove, it is likely that Junts and ERC will share power again,
because they are united by their faith in the identity and exclusionary destiny to which they owe and that their constituents demand of them, unavailable to discouragement and pragmatism.
In this sense, that fatal law of sanchismo has been fulfilled, by which every time the polls are opened under his mandate, extremes have grown again and moderation has once again waned.
Sánchez came to power under the promise of directing the Catalan problem that Rajoy had bequeathed to him towards the "reunion" of Catalan society.
But their policy of "ibuprofen", their continuous cessions to the separatists, have not only failed to persuade them to lay down their disloyalty to move closer to the shared project of the Constitution, but rather
It has emboldened you more than ever.
What good is Illa's good result - he does well to appear for the investiture, despite the foreseeable failure - if it is not going to translate into change any of the segregationist policies that have been in force since Pujol and that this 14-F received an endorsement massive?
For the rest, the very poor results of Cs and PP force a deep self-criticism.
The collapse of Cs, even greater than expected, offers the image of a decomposing party that one day vigorously led constitutional liberalism in Catalonia, where it was born and where it may have died.
Inés Arrimadas has failed to revitalize a much-needed center project
for an increasingly polarized country.
As for the PP, that it has not known how to capitalize on the collapse of Cs portrays the
erratic address of Pablo Casado,
whose efforts to build a reliable alternative to sanchismo seem futile.
Only Feijóo in Galicia camouflages the hits in the Basque Country and Catalonia.
The
sorpasso
de Vox, whose candidate was not able to get close to the figure for the Generalitat's budget, confirms that
the emotional vote is taking over the liberal-conservative space,
which deepens the fragmentation, guarantees the mobilization of the left and nationalism and ultimately ensures Sánchez in Moncloa.
You can understand the emotion of Salvador Illa on election night.
It is very legitimate.
As much at least as that of Inés Arrimadas was three years ago.
But
it is impossible to suppress the feeling that this story is already known its bitter end.
The government will surely shake the carrot of pardons and further degrade Congress by anchoring itself to the extra-parliamentary bilateral table in a desperate attempt to get Junqueras to collaborate with Illa - as if such a thing were to return "Spain to Catalonia", in Illa's words , when the previous tripartites walked exactly in the opposite direction-, but it is probable that ERC will ally with Junts again.
That's why
a sad day for all Spaniards who wish the survival of the 1978 democracy
and who appreciate territorial unity as a guarantee of freedom and equality.
But free men do not ask what is going to happen now, but what they are going to do to make what they want to happen.
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