Parties put presidency first on final day of campaign

The last day of the election campaign was a final chance for the political parties to make one more appeal to voters. Despite the various issues that have dominated the campaign, most parties cut to the chase, making a last argument about why they deserve to win the big prize: the Catalan presidency.

With the two candidates best placed to win the top job unable to campaign in Catalonia (one behind bars and the other in exile), it has been a strange couple of weeks. Thursday’s election is likely to be just as unusual and how things will look on Friday after all the votes have been counted is anyone’s guess.

Iceta proposes himself as president

The Catalan socialist leader, Miquel Iceta, believes he could be the man of the moment, but only if his PSC party can come to an agreement to invest him with the support of Ciutadans (Cs), the Catalan People’s Party (PPC) and Catalonia in Common-Podem. For Iceta, no other combination of numbers will be enough to keep the pro-independence bloc out of office. Warning of the need to avoid a second election, Iceta also said he would not support Cs candidate, Inés Arrimadas, for president, as she is not the solution Catalonia needs.

The president of “reconciliation and common sense”

Arrimadas replied to Iceta’s proposal saying “the important thing is not who gets the presidential chair, but rather the alternative project.' 'Nevertheless, the Cs leader still made her case for president, despite Iceta’s refusal to support her for the post, casting herself as the candidate of “reconciliation, common sense and composure.” Calling for voters to turn out, Arrimadas again warned about the perils of the independence movement: “It still has not done all the harm it can do,” she said.

JxCat demand “legitimate” president be reinstated

For the Together for Catalonia (JxCat) ticket there already is a Catalan president, the deposed Carles Puigdemont, in exile in Brussels. His party gathered on Tuesday in a Barcelona square to insist that he be reinstated as the “legitimate” head of the Catalan government. In a manifesto, the party called for dialogue with the Spanish government, on the condition that it is “between equals”. The party planned to bring its campaign to a close later in the evening with Puigdemont giving a speech from Belgium via video link.

“Democracy always wins” says ERC number two

While JxCat called for the “legitimate” president to be reinstated, it also called for the whole deposed Catalan government to be restored. That would include former vice president and ERC party head, Oriol Junqueras, who is still in prison. On Tuesday, ERC’s number two candidate, Marta Rovira, travelled to the Estremera prison where Junqueras is being held. Calling her party chief’s continued imprisonment “unjust”, Rovira warned the Spanish government that “democracy always wins” and said the State “fears democracy.”

CatECP rejects "'Frankenstein' government"

At the same time, the party that could find itself in a decisive position when it comes to the inevitable horse trading after the election, Catalonia in Common-Podem (CatECP), presented itself as the executive of progress and the left. Leader Xavier Domènech responded to Iceta’s proposal to make him president saying. “we will extend a hand to him for an inclusive government.” The only problem is that Domènech rejects working with Cs or PPC, something he said would produce a "'Frankenstein' government".

CUP wants to amass the far-left vote

The CUP is competing against Esquerra and Together for Catalonia in the pro-independence field, but also CatECP for the far-left vote. “There are a lot of people who are fed up with the left-wing parties with an ambiguous discourse,” one of its candidates, Núria Gibert, said in an implicit reference to Domènech’s party. Gibert also said that they are likely to get more seats than what the polls show, even reaching to the unprecedented 10 seats they achieved two years ago. 

“No to independence” says Rajoy

Someone who has no chance of becoming Catalan president but who nevertheless remains a key player in the election is PPC leader Xavier García Albiol. He was in Girona on Tuesday alongside his party head, Spanish president Mariano Rajoy, who warned that the pro-independence bloc’s strategy of “divide and separate is to take a path to a past that all of us thought left behind.” Rajoy gave little sign that JxCat’s call for dialogue would be taken up should they win: “The only dialogue they considered is yes to the referendum and yes to independence, and I say no to independence because that is what the Constitution says and most Spaniards,” he said.