JxCat and ERC dismiss election postponement

BarcelonaOn Friday the Councillor for the Presidency, Meritxell Budó, opened the door to postponing the elections on the basis of the pandemic in an interview on TVE's Cafè d'idees. On Sunday it was the Minister of the Interior, Miquel Sàmper, who said that the elections had to be held but not at "any price" in Catalunya Ràdio's El suplement. But yesterday it was the spokesperson of JxCat, Elsa Artadi, and the assistant general secretary of ERC, Marta Vilalta, who wanted to keep that door firmly shut and assured that they will be held on February 14.

In the press conferences following the meetings of the directors of JxCat and ERC, the spokespersons affirmed that the coalition partners are working to ensure that the elections take place and they removed the possibility of postponing the election due to the effect of the pandemic. Artadi, after the declarations of JxCat's councillors, said that the party's commitment is to hold the elections and to do so with "guarantees". She asked to avoid "speculation" and was in favour of calling on all parliamentary groups to respond to "concerns" and share the government's plan with the opposition. A position, she said, that they share with ERC. At the same time, Marta Vilalta expressed the same desire: she defended that despite the health crisis, it is possible to vote in "safe conditions" and asked not to "speculate" on the issue.

The declaration of intentions of the members of the government came after the Catalan Ombudsman, Rafael Ribó, presented a new report on the elections and the pandemic. At a press conference yesterday in Parliament, he advised exploring the possibility of voting for two days for infected or isolated people, "mobile" ballot boxes or extending the deadline for postal voting. He also advocated that the groups elect an independent commission to decide before 15 January whether to postpone the elections: "If by that date conditions were to arise that would make it difficult to vote, measures such as postponing the elections would have to be taken".

The most recent precedents are the Basque Country and Galicia, where governments postponed the April 5 elections following the first wave of the pandemic. The two governments called for citizens to vote on July 12, but not everyone was able to do so: they banned half a thousand people who were infected from voting. In Catalonia, sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for the area of electoral processes, assure that they are "one hundred percent focused" so that the elections will be held on February 14 and that right now they are not considering "any postponement". "We have a fixed date and it is our only priority," said the department. The ministry has already prepared a report with measures to guarantee the right to vote, as other entities of the Generalitat have done. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been receptive to all the reports -it has avoided opening up any controversy despite the fact that they propose different formulas- and recalls that, in the end, it will be Procicat who will have the last word on how the elections will have to be.

The opposition asks for clarity

The guarantees given yesterday by the governing parties, however, did not convince the opposition. Eva Granados, spokesperson of the PSC, asked for clarity from the government and that the vice-president, Pere Aragonès, who has to sign the automatic call for the elections on December 22, bring the groups together to clarify the position of the Generalitat. In addition, he considered that questioning whether covid would permit holding elections straight after beginning to lift restrictions casts doubt on the the appropriateness of the latter. The PDECat also joined the criticism and warned that it is a "mistake" to talk now about a postponement.

According to the government, the elections will be held, but with covid setting the tone, no one dares to be totally assertive.