Main left-wing parties supporting previous consultation vote meet and ask for early elections

Barcelona (ACN).- After the civil society demonstration that took place on Sunday asking for the rebuilding of the unity of action and calling early elections, there has been some confusion regarding the Catalan Government's announcement of a "pre-agreement" on "a unity on technical matters" for the alternative participatory process on the 9th of November. In the morning the Catalan Government's Spokesperson, Francesc Homs, announced such a pre-agreement with the alternative left and radical independence CUP and was hoping the other parties would join it. The CUP refused such a pre-agreement. In addition, the left-wing Catalan independence party ERC and the Catalan green socialist and post-communist coalition ICV-EUiA met after knowing this announcement for a lunch meeting. The CUP was also invited but refused to attend. The ERC and ICV-EUiA asked the Catalan Government to call early elections. In addition, they were surprised at Homs' announcement and said they will keep working for a shared proposal to strengthen the democratic guarantees for the new November 9 proposed by the Catalan Government and the governing centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU. In the evening, the ERC, ICV-EUiA and CUP met at the Catalan Parliament to discuss this proposal, but they did not reach a definitive agreement yet.

On Monday morning, Francesc Homs announced that the Catalan Government and the CUP had reached "a pre-agreement" to rebuild "a technical unity" around the alternative participatory process on the 9^th of November. Such a pre-agreement was open to the ERC and ICV-EUiA, in order to support the new consultation vote that is replacing the original one, banned by the Spanish authorities. However, the announcement was refused by the CUP, which issued a press release denying such pre-agreement. A few hours earlier, one of the CUP MPs, David Fernández, had stated in a radio interview that they were about to close a deal with the Catalan Government to increase the democratic guarantees for the 9^th of November's alternative consultation vote.

Faced with these announcements and refusals, the ERC and ICV-EUiA leadership decided to meet for lunch. They also invited the CUP to join, but the latter refused the offer. Despite not having participated in the meeting, the CUP was called after it to inform them about the discussion. After this meeting, The ERC's President, Oriol Junqueras, and the ICV-EUiA's leader, Joan Herrera asked the Catalan Government to stop announcing unilateral agreements. They were said to be "surprised" at the latest public statements. Furthermore, they demanded early elections and said they were hoping to work with the CUP in a shared proposal to increase such democratic guarantees for the 9^th of November. However, they did not disclose when this proposal will be ready. None of them mentioned anything about running together in such early elections. In the evening, the met again in the Catalan Parliament, together with the CUP, but they did not reach a definitive agreement yet.