Remain in or exit cabinet, or blank vote: three options for junior coalition party members

The Catalan government's junior partner, Junts, will give its members three choices in the internal vote to decide the fate of the cabinet on October 6 and 7: remaining in the executive they share with the fellow pro-independence party Esquerra, exiting the coalition, or a blank vote.

"Do you want Junts to continue being part of the current Catalan government?". This will be the question the 6,465 eligible members of the party will face in the vote, which will take place from Wednesday midnight into Thursday until Friday at 5pm, as party secretary general Jordi Turull explained on Monday.  

His press conference took place after the party leadership spent over three hours deliberating on how to frame the question and answers in the morning, after no deal could be reached over the weekend in last-ditch talks with their senior government partner. 

Indeed, the official said that over the weekend, his party has lowered their conditions for an agreement to stay in cabinet but Esquerra has denied any concession.

"Has Esquerra made any move during the talks? No, not at all. And we have lowered our conditions," Jordi Turull wondered.

Both parties are going through a deep crisis of confidence and the decision of Junts' membership may result in the end of the coalition as soon as this week. If this happened, a solo executive of Esquerra would be expected to take over.

According to Esquerra spokesperson Marta Vilalta, Esquerra is prepared to rule alone if Junts members vote to leave. "The question that needs to be resolved is what Junts wants: whether they want to remain in government and be loyal and responsible or whether they want to leave the coalition," she said. 

Crisis of confidence in government

The current crisis began last week, when the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, of the senior coalition partner Esquerra Republicana, fired his vice president, Junts' Jordi Puigneró as his number two after a day of crisis talks both within and between the two parties. The president took this decision citing a loss of confidence in his second-in-command in cabinet after Junts suggested a motion of confidence in the head of government on Tuesday night during the general policy debate. 

Junts then set Aragonès a deadline of Sunday to reach an agreement on the conditions to stay in the executive, but at the same time announced an internal vote for this Thursday and Friday where their members will be asked whether or not they should stay in the coalition or leave.

The underlying reasons for the clash are the different paths both mainstream parties want to pursue in order to achieve independence for Catalonia. 

While Junts want to continue the path of confrontation with Spain that peaked in 2017 and calls for exercising "the mandate of the 2017 referendum," Esquerra prioritizes talks with Spain in order to persuade Madrid to agree on a referendum like Scotland did in the 2010s with the United Kingdom. 

On the other hand, the unionist party Ciudadanos has condemned the situation.

"We think the Catalan government is a toy that was broken a while ago. We don't care if vice president Puigneró is reinstated or not," Anna Grau, a member of the unionist party said during a press conference.

Junts' conditions to stay in government

One of Junts' original requirements to remain in government was for Aragonès to reinstate Jordi Puigneró as vice president, who was fired last week by Aragonès, but on Monday morning, Puigneró and party president Laura Borràs revealed that in the last version of the proposal sent, the former VP's reinstatement had been removed as a demand.

Also, they have put forward three topics of the 2021 investiture agreement they want to see followed: a joint strategy towards independence; focusing the negotiation table with the Spanish government on amnesty and self-determination; and having a joint strategy on what is voted in the congress in Madrid to the interests of the Catalan executive.