CHILDISHNESS. We typically drift towards a pre-school level debate, one based on escalating bickering and mindless typecasting. It is childish to abandon the right/left dialectic for no obvious reason, even if your name is Pablo Iglesias or Albert Rivera. Likewise, the pro-independence camp tends to overuse Josep Pla’s now worn-out quotation: “the nearest thing to a right-wing Spaniard is a left-wing Spaniard”. Referring to anyone who has had a government job in Catalonia as being “a pawn of the establishment” is sectarian. All these argumentative tricks oversimplify and tarnish the debate. Unfortunately, 2015 is an electoral year and we won’t be hearing otherwise. Actually, this is hardly news. For a long time now, some have given themselves carte blanche purely on the basis of being self-titled lefties, accusing their competitors --or anyone who annoyed them-- of being right-wing. This had always been ICV’s forte (and the PSC’s, albeit more on the sly) until, alas!, another party popped up further to the left --you can always bank on that-- and now they have got a taste of their own medicine.
CUNNING. For years, Joan Herrera’s cunning allowed him to dodge those who wanted him gone. ICV displayed the very same shwredness when it chose to distance itself from Izquierda Unida and its ancient ways as when it jumped on the Catalan independence bandwagon --but not all the way, just to be safe-- and hopped on the Podemos wave with Ada Colau as the ring master. Were it not for the Guanyem per Barcelona operation, Herrera could have been facing an electoral disaster. Instead, he is elbowing his way into position so that he can get his share of Podemos’ crumbs in the upcoming polls. However, he is paying a high price for it. For the first time ever, the heirs of the PSUC have decided not to run in the Barcelona local elections all on their own. Ricard Gomà --who strikes me as a principled, honest politician-- has quit before being told that he was just getting in the way or he was too impure to be on the same candidacy as Ada Colau. While we are at it, let us not forget that Gomà is pro-independence, as are Raül Romeva and Jaume Bosch, who have thrown in the towel, too. They are the victims of the panic stirred by the new Spanish media left. In a pragmatic move, ICV has chosen to influence Podemos and build a confederal consensus. In other words, one or two more decades of calculated ambiguity, so as not to lose sight of what is truly important: “the establishment”, the cutbacks, etc.
RIGHT-WING. Podemos wants nothing to do with the PP and the PSOE (for now). ICV won’t strike a deal with CiU or anyone who partners up with CiU, even if it’s Catalonia’s future political status that is at stake. This is in stark contrast with the old PCE and the old PSUC, who agreed to the Transition, Tarradellas’ return and the economic reform programme, not only with CiU but with UCD, a political party filled with former supporters of General Franco. At that time, when so much was at stake for our country, we didn’t have a Joan Mena claiming (as he recently has) that Mas and Junqueras have agreed on “a right-wing road map”. What on earth is “a right-wing road map”? Is he suggesting that we will have a right-wing independence? A right-wing State? A State --and this whole thing is about having one we can call our own-- is neither left-wing nor right-wing. Instead, it’s people who are left or right-wing, as are the parties they vote for. If ICV have decided to hop off the independence bandwagon, they have every right to do so. They used to be afraid of ERC and the CUP; now they are more afraid of Podemos. We can understand that. But please do not try to justify yourselves by arguing that independence is right-wing, because that is a laughable statement and a significant number of your voters do not deserve it.
