Nogueras charges against Rufián for his alliance with Podemos and vindicates Junts as the only party of "strictly Catalan obedience"

Míriam Nogueras has directed her criticism this Saturday against Gabriel Rufián and his alliance with Podemos, hours before the pre-campaign event that the ERC candidate shares with Irene Montero in Barcelona. The head of Junts' list for Barcelona has accused the republicans of subordinating themselves to Spanish parties and has presented her party as the only one of "strictly Catalan obedience" that is running in the general elections on November 29.

"For some parties, the priority ends up being to obey Spanish parties, to ally with Spanish parties, to be part of all this noise and all this polarization, to let themselves be dragged by the extremes," she stated in Sant Celoni, where she participated in a walk against breast cancer. Nogueras has maintained that ERC "has formed a coalition with a Spanish left-wing party and, therefore, of obedience to Spain".

The pro-independence leader has contrasted this collaboration with the pressure capacity she attributes to her deputies. She has defended that Junts has placed Catalonia at the "center of practically all decisions made in Madrid" and has asked for more strength at the polls. "The more strength and the louder the voice of Catalonia, Catalonia advances," she assured.

The agreement that Nogueras questions maintains ERC's candidacy and incorporates members of Podemos as independents, while the purples renounce presenting their own ballot in Catalonia. It also contemplates joint events by Rufián and Montero, such as the one scheduled for this Saturday at 12:00 in the Plaza Major of Nou Barris. Junts and ERC each obtained seven deputies in the 2023 general elections and now face the dispute for the pro-independence vote with different strategies to influence state politics.

Junts claims its influence while hardening its vetoes on the PSOE

The appeal to Catalan obedience prolongs the discourse that Nogueras deployed last Saturday, when Junts ratified its candidacies for 29N. Then she presented herself as the meeting point for those who are tired of extremes and attacked Salvador Illa for acting as a "PSOE vase". This claim of centrality coexists with the veto expressed by Jordi Turull to re-invest Pedro Sánchez, whose Government went ahead in 2023 with the votes of Junts.

The clash with the left has intensified this week. On Friday, Ernest Urtasun reproached Junts for its equidistance in the face of the possible arrival of the far-right to the Government. Nogueras responded by accusing the Executive of having aggravated problems during its eight years in office and again demanded that Catalonia occupy the center of any political understanding. Her response turns eventual parliamentary support into a matter of territorial conditions, even in the face of the possibility of a PP and Vox majority.

The candidate also brought the occupation to the pre-campaign on Friday, following reports about the transfer to Mataró of a family whose trip and accommodation were paid for by the Baños de Montemayor City Council, in Cáceres. Nogueras used this municipal episode to demand more powers for Catalonia and attack the PSOE, Rufián, Feijóo, Podemos and Ada Colau. She accused these last two forces of promoting occupations, a statement that is part of her political offensive.

In Sant Celoni, Nogueras has also claimed that Junts' pressure has allowed accelerating access to treatments against metastatic breast cancer and has demanded more capacity to force government decisions. The authorization of a medicine and its public financing are different procedures. Among the decisions adopted in this area is that of the Interministerial Commission for the Prices of Medicines of September 26, 2024, which proposed financing new indications of Enhertu and Trodelvy for certain cases of metastatic breast cancer.