ppc's candidate

PPC, the Catalan branch of the conservative People’s Party aims to return the trust of all those citizens who supported the party in 2011 when the PP obtained an absolute majority. “We still have time” stated PPC’s candidate for the Spanish Elections in Barcelona province, Jorge Fernández Díaz who is currently Spanish Minister for Home Affairs. He urged Catalans to “fill the ballot boxes with national pride, seriousness, rigour and hope” and accused the pro-independence forces of being “traitors” for “breaking the constitutional agreement” and assured that “nobody has ever dared to go this far”. According to Fernández Díaz, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is the only guarantee “to get rid of the toxic process which is dividing Catalans” and assured that Spain “is not for sale, nor likely to be broken”.   

In the last Catalan elections, in 2012, the PPC got their best results ever, increasing from 18 to 19 seats in the 135-seat Catalan Parliament. The PP was already ruling the Spanish government by that time and its politics regarding Catalonia’s sovereignty were harsh and recentralising. For the upcoming 27-S elections the PPC has changed its candidate: Xavier García Albiol, former mayor of Badalona, the third city in Catalonia, substitutes Alicia Sánchez Camacho. Albiol represents the more extreme faction of the PPC and he has been accused of being xenophobic by his political opponents. He is openly against the independence of Catalonia: he thinks the process is “a romantic adventure led by Artur Mas” and he aims to stand up for those “millions of Catalans who don’t want to stop being Spanish”.