Junts Starts Nov. 29 Campaign Aiming to Keep Its Seven Seats

Junts per Catalunya (the Catalan pro-independence party led by Carles Puigdemont) began its campaign for the Nov. 29 Spanish general election on Thursday with a goal of holding on to the seven seats it won in 2023. Polls cited by the Catalan outlet Ara put the party at five to six seats, a setback from the result three years ago.

Whatever the final count, the party says it wants to stay decisive in forming the next Spanish government. Ara reports that the aim is to keep the parliamentary weight that made Junts a determining vote during the current term, give or take one seat.

Polls and the missing rival

The same barometers that predict losses also contain a point in the party’s favor. Aliança Catalana, the hard-right Catalan party, is not running. According to the latest published polls, as Ara describes them, one in every five potential Aliança voters could choose Junts, as could the same share of Vox voters.

Míriam Nogueras heads the list. Ara calls her the most highly rated leader inside the party and its main asset after Puigdemont. On opening day she said Junts is the only party that returns home with the job done. Puigdemont, who spoke by video link from Brussels, said the seven Junts deputies were talked about across Europe and that they do in Madrid the work that is not done in Catalonia.

The pitch: Catalonia at the center

The campaign motto is “Catalonia at the center.” Because Esquerra Republicana and Podem signed a pact, Junts is the only party of strictly Catalan origin on the ballot, and it presents itself as the one defending Catalan interests in Madrid without supporting any Spanish government unconditionally. It is aiming at Catalans it describes as tired of the extremes, setting itself against both the Spanish left and the right.

Nogueras ruled out any agreement with the Partido Popular (PP, Spain’s main centre-right party), calling it a stale right wing that wants to destroy the Catalan language. The party is open to backing a PSOE candidate in an investiture vote, but not Pedro Sánchez, the incumbent. The same veto applied in 2023, and Junts voted for him in the end. It has also extended the veto to Ada Colau, the former Barcelona mayor who is running for the Broad Front, with Nogueras saying neither Santiago Abascal nor Colau would become a minister with Junts votes.

What Junts is asking for

Junts says it will support the PSOE after Nov. 29 only if what it calls the Catalan agenda is placed at the center. With the amnesty law passed late but secured, its main demand is the economic agreement: collection and management of all taxes in Catalonia, which it presents as fiscal sovereignty, similar to the arrangement of the Basque Country. The party has distanced itself from the new financing model that Esquerra agreed with the Spanish government, which the PP and Vox reject.

The party plans to present its economic sovereignty proposal on Friday, in a conversation between Nogueras and Antoni Castellà. It also wants any investiture talks to cover three points that were in its 2023 pact with Sánchez and, according to Ara, have not been fulfilled:

• completing the transfer of Rodalies (Catalonia’s commuter rail) powers, which the Spanish government announced on Thursday is on hold until a new executive takes office;
• immigration powers for the Generalitat (the Catalan government);
• further progress for Catalan, including official status in the European Union.

Source: Ara