Rufián hints at a possible alliance with Ada Colau and Ernest Urtasun: "I don't have anyone to spare"

Gabriel Rufián spoke again about possible electoral alliances during his interview with Gonzo on Salvados. The presenter wanted to know if the ERC spokesperson would be willing to form a candidacy in Catalonia with Ada Colau and Ernest Urtasun, a possibility for which the Catalan politician avoided drawing red lines. "No one is superfluous to me," he assured during the conversation. "If Colau brings in a vote, it works for me, and if Urtasun brings it in, it also works for me," he stated.

Rufián explained that his approach involves assessing what each person can contribute to a common project. In that sense, he pointed out that both Colau and Urtasun could have a place if they manage to garner support. He also acknowledged that the incorporation of certain names can generate opposing opinions, but he defended that it is not his place to decide who can or cannot be part of an eventual candidacy. When speaking of Colau, he highlighted her background as an activist and her time as Mayor of Barcelona, although he also acknowledged that during that period there were aspects that could have been improved.

The possibility of a joint candidacy clashes, at least for now, with the position expressed by Oriol Junqueras. The president of ERC has shown himself to be against his party running in an election with Ada Colau as a candidate, a stance that Rufián described as an “error”. When Gonzo wanted to go a step further and asked who should lead a hypothetical list, the republican spokesperson avoided commenting: “No idea, I'm not going to fall for that.” At another point in the conversation, Rufián also left one of the most striking phrases of the interview when referring to the possibility of revisiting former pro-independence leaders in Soto del Real.

Rufián's political future was another of the issues that marked the interview. Asked if he considers leaving politics, he replied that he thinks about it “every day.” The ERC leader also differentiated between a possible alliance of left-wing forces in Catalonia and a similar agreement in Spain as a whole, where he assured that he would not feel comfortable defending the same formula. Housing, security, immigration, and relations between the different progressive parties completed a conversation that ended with Rufián meeting face-to-face with the citizens who had participated in the program's particular experiment.

Rufián focuses on immigration, security, and integration

Immigration also occupied a relevant space in the conversation. Rufián defended the need to recover “legal entry routes” and control borders, while advocating for a model based on “rights and obligations”, regardless of each person's origin. The ERC leader acknowledged that addressing these issues can be uncomfortable within the left, especially when there is a risk that their proposals may be interpreted as an approximation to the right-wing discourse.

In that context, Rufián focused on “multi-offending” and the security problems affecting certain neighborhoods. The Catalan politician insisted on separating crime from immigration and rejected the idea that migrants are responsible for precariousness. “They are not responsible for your precariousness,” he said during the interview, before arguing that the situation should be approached as a “challenge of inclusion and integration.”

Rufián also questioned the use of slogans to address issues that, in his opinion, require concrete answers. During the conversation, he argued that certain issues should be able to be discussed without fear of receiving certain labels and gave as an example the principle that “he who does it pays for it,” regardless of who commits the crime.

Rufián's warning to Sánchez

The ERC spokesperson also directed certain criticisms towards the PSOE. Rufián maintained that, when the Government has had to choose between protecting the "precarious tenant" or defending the interests of large landlords, it has ended up opting for the latter. In his speech, he also questioned the relationship between politics and the construction sector and highlighted the weight that, in his view, large companies hold in economic decisions. Among his proposals, Rufián suggested raising taxes on those who accumulate a high number of homes and establishing limits when the concentration of properties leads to a situation of speculation. He also called for intervention on rental prices in certain circumstances. His approach was based on the idea he repeated during the conversation: housing should not become an asset on which one can speculate without limits.

The conversation led Gonzo to directly ask him about Pedro Sánchez and the possibilities of the president ending up leaving La Moncloa. Rufián replied that, in his opinion, the main risk for the head of the Executive would not necessarily be in the controversies affecting his inner circle.  "The PSOE is afraid of power. The PSOE does not understand that it can be in Moncloa, but it does not rule," he maintained. In his opinion, this dynamic would also be related to the investigations affecting his personal environment. However, Rufián ruled out that these cases are necessarily what will determine his departure from the Government. The ERC leader assured that he has conveyed this to Sánchez himself on several occasions: "You are not going to leave because of... You are going to leave because of social cowardice."

Rufián insisted that, from his perspective, the pressures on the president can continue regardless of how these cases evolve. "What are they going to do? Pursue your wife? Pursue your brother? Pursue your party? It all sounds familiar to me," he affirmed.