CUP approves of alliance with Guanyem, and accepts Dolors Sabater as leading candidate
Guanyem, which has to decide if they ratify the alliance, claims more autonomy
The CUP makes the manoeuvre it had sought for the Catalan Parliamentary elections, and Dolors Sabater has a platform to make the leap from local to Catalan politics. The cupaires (CUP voters and sympathizers) have validated the alliance with Guanyem Catalunya and that the ex-mayor of Badalona is their leading candidate for the 14-F elections. Now the ball is in Guanyem Catalunya's court, which must debate whether to accept the CUP's proposal - and who demand that the spirit of the movement is not dissolved within the anti-capitalist formation. "The pre-agreement document is theirs and it is not consensual", points out a member of the municipalist platform. The negotiations will continue, therefore, despite the fact that the yes of the CUP undoubtedly puts pressure on Guanyem.
The CUP assemblies validated the agreement with Guanyem by 33 votes to 26, with 3 abstentions, thanks to the unequivocal support of Poble Lliure, which has strongly backed the agreement, and the non-aligned sector of the party, the majority, which has left Endavant, the other large sector of the party, in the minority, which opposes the concessions that, in its opinion, are made to Guanyem due to its lack of presence in the territory and its low level of militancy. A narrow margin that highlights the internal divergences of the organization.
Be that as it may, the spokesperson of the national secretariat, Maria Rovira, has not hidden her joy at the validation of the pre-agreement. "We are very happy with the approval of this pre-agreement because we want to build a wide candidacy to change the current situation with new space to face this new political cycle". Rovira stressed that "the CUP takes a step forward to show that this space is permeable" and added that they want "Sabater to lead the candidacy". She also underlined that she trusts that Guanyem will ratify it because "it is the result of negotiations", despite the fact that she has been open to continue talking.
The pre-agreement, which was approved today in an extraordinary political council, supposes de facto a coalition between the two formations because although the document does not explicitly specify it, it does include it at some point, and at the same time it stipulates the establishment of a bilateral space of coordination, a treatment that none of the other organizations that support the candidacy has. Rovira did not want to talk about a coalition and pointed out that "there will be a specific relationship with Guanyem". The document ratified by the cupaires also establishes that the name of the candidacy is not only that of the CUP, and that the leading candidate of the other three constituencies (Lleida, Girona, and Tarragona) are for the anti-capitalist formation.
Sabater's name was one of the three that the CUP had put on the table to lead the candidacy. In view of the impossibility for the ex-deputy Anna Gabriel, exiled in Geneva, to return to Catalonia to form part of the list because she is exposed to being accused of a crime other than disobedience and, therefore, exposed to prison; and the refusal of David Fernàndez; Sabater will now be the leading candidate if Guanyem Catalunya does not reject the cupaires' conditions and approve this week the proposal that has been offered to them.
