Catalonia-12M: For a Left Front for the elections and for the struggle in the streets
The electoral advance and the capitalist crisis raise the need and the opportunity to set up a new project for self-determination, anticapitalist, revolutionary and socialist.
The Catalan elections were scheduled for February 2025, but the president Pere Aragonés ended the Legislature and fixed the new call for the 12 of May 2024. The electoral advance was called after Parliament rejected the budget 2024 presented by ERC with the support of PSC, a determining point being the debate surrounding the construction of the Hard Rock casino and its rejection by the CUP and the Commons. Nevertheless, this is not the only reason why the elections are brought forward by more than a year.
Responsible for a disaster
ERC is in total political decay and this made them consider the advancement as one “lesser evil” before its wear continues to deepen. During the period of Aragonès at the head of the Parliament, wages have been devalued with inflation and job insecurity has deepened. Rents and tariffs for electricity and other services have risen to the point of being unaffordable, public health and education conditions have continued to worsen. They have continued to use the armed arm of power, the Mossos d'Esquadra, to suppress social movements, evict families and dependents. They have also given in completely to autonomy by negotiating with Pedro Sánchez and giving air to the regime. Me too, with the terrible management of the drought, its failure to be a sufficiently legitimate option before the population is reaffirmed. It is unfortunate to see the dispute between the leaders of ERC and Junts to show who is the best ally of the PSOE and to see who keeps the “merits" of the agreements with Pedro Sánchez when, both the pardon to pro-independence leaders and the partial amnesty achieved, they are the result of the demands of the Catalan popular mobilizations. Pere Aragonés from power and Oriol Junqueras from the party, they are responsible for leading a disastrous Government for the working people, both in the democratic and social spheres.
Per ERC “When a door closes, a window opens”.
With the new Aragonès announcement, ERC intends to take advantage of the national situation that has been placed by the PSOE and, accordingly, to the PSC in a position weakened by the corruption of the "Trama Koldo" that permeates the 1978 regime with the smell of rot. Remember that Salvador Illa, referent of the Catalan socialists, he was Minister of Health during the corruption scandal that is being investigated. Also among the most pro-Hispanic and reactionary sectors, it is possible to foresee a punishment in the vote for the socialists for their approval of the amnesty law. In addition, the decision also took into account the situation of pro-independence parties: Juntos still has no candidate, although Carles Puigdemont left the possibility of presenting himself half open. And the CUP is focused on the "Garbí Process" for the “refund”. The progress in Catalonia has had consequences in Spain, since the sharpened dispute between ERC and Junts, crutch of the Sánchez government, has caused the PSOE to postpone the budget debate of 2024. whatever, ERC's intentions are one thing and the results another, with the results of the elections we will see if the progress is favorable for them or if it has just sunk them.
We must turn our backs on the expressions of the regime and the system
Looking ahead to 12M, we cannot place expectations on ERC, which is subject to corporate interests, as we have already seen with the failed attempt at Hard Rock, but who still insists on going forward, together with other projects such as the Fourth Belt, which are widely rejected by social and environmental movements. Junts also has governing experience and is not that far from ERC, more cuts and privatisations. Both attack the unity of independence from their own interests, which are those of the Catalan bourgeoisie. Beyond the "independence" rhetoric they maintain, it would be a mistake to forget that they let pass the historic opportunity to make the Catalan Republic a reality with the people in the streets and that, instead, they have set the course towards autonomy. The alternative must not be the PSC-PSOE, the most reliable option for employers, nor the Commons, a beautiful face of the regime and capitalism. To consequently face ERC and Junts, to the right of the PP, to the extreme right of Vox and Aliança Catalana, a different political alternative is needed.
For a Left Front for elections and struggles
A Left Front must be formed, with a class independence and transitional program, for a full amnesty, the defense of the territory, self-determination, a government of the workers and the people and socialism. Formed by veteran militants, working class activists, of the feminist movement, environmentalist and student, with combative social platforms, the defenders of the rights of immigrants, the anti-fascists and those who embrace the cause of a Free Sahara. It must be a tool that responds to the crisis of the 1978 regime and the consequences of the capitalist economic crisis; driving the irruption of popular mobilization and the general strike to impose their own agenda “from below", something that neither the regime parties nor the leaders of the majority unions do, handed over to employers' and governments' interests in turn.
Challenges and opportunities for the CUP and the left
The CUP has announced the start of the territorial debate that will culminate in a telematic vote to validate the electoral list. In this sense, from the participation and critical support we have given them on different occasions, we believe that the CUP and the independenceist left can play an important role in class liberation if they make an appeal like the one we propose. It could also be fulfilled by Anticapitalists. So that the anti-system approaches are consequential, it is necessary to detach yourself from any position of adaptation to the regime that, since not being forceful in this delimitation, it could mark a before and after in the course towards reformism. An anti-capitalist radical left alternative would be stronger with the participation of the groups that claim to be revolutionary socialists, as Socialism and Freedom, Internationalist struggle, Revolutionary Left, the CRT and Red Current. It is useful and urgent to hold a meeting to exchange views and explore the possibility of forging an alternative and class pole to the regime's options.
