BarcelonaThere has been no understanding and finally there will be two demonstrations due to the chaos in Rodalies. The ANC accuses the Network of Platforms of Train Users of Catalonia of counter-programming them with an alternative march, but the coordinator pulls iron to call for mobilization on the same day and believes that she must be the one to lead the mobilization. In the midst of this pulse, neither of the two entities has given in and there will be two marches for the railway desori on Saturday, February 7. That of the Assembly, at twelve noon, and that of the Network, at five in the afternoon.
In this scenario of division, what will parties and organizations do? Which of the two demonstrations will they go to? The pro-independence parties have confirmed to ARA that they will be at the two mobilizations, although ERC has only publicized the users’ march on the networks. Who else celebrated the ANC’s call was Junts, with ex-president Carles Puigdemont, calling for mobilisation.
The PSC has not called for the protest, while the Commons already advanced on Monday that it would only be that of the Network. Both the PP and Vox will also participate in this last demonstration. “We will go to all the demonstrations that are not called by separatism, co-responsible for the railway collapse to support the Sánchez Government for 8 years in exchange for placing the plugs of Junts and ERC on the boards of directors of public and participating companies”, say far-right sources. The idea is that the leader of Vox in Catalonia and secretary general of the party, Ignacio Garriga, will go there, if he does not have to go to Extremadura to close the investiture pact of the popular María Guardiola.
The presence of the popular, but especially of the extreme right, in a social march, in an exceptional situation in Catalonia, has provoked the rejection of the convenors. The Associació de Promoció del Transport Públic (PTP), one of the main organizations of the user platform, has made it clear in a statement on social networks that the popular “are not welcome to this civil mobilization, where they want to participate in an interested act of propaganda, hypocrisy and provocation”, after recalling that they are “responsible for years of disinvestment in Catalonia”.
Adrià Ramírez, spokesperson for this entity, also warns that Vox is not welcome at the march: “Far-right parties are not welcome at the demonstration. We don’t want them there. In fact, all the platforms have agreed a long time ago not to talk to Vox or Aliança Catalana.” The party of Sílvia Orriols has not confirmed to ARA whether its president Sílvia Orriols or deputy Rosa Maria Soberana will attend any of the demonstrations. In the case of the independence party, the ANC has always barred the door to the Islamophobic party and neither of the two leaders has publicly expressed their intention to attend.
Omnium rejects the common front with the ANC
Òmnium endorses the two calls, but publicly it has gotten wet with that of the users. The entity supported the ANC’s demonstration when it was made public, but this Thursday its president, Xavier Antich, participated in the family photograph of the entities convening the afternoon march and then made a tweet encouraging the mobilization, something he had not done with the Assembly’s.
Omnium sources admit that they did not want to close ranks with the ANC: “They asked us to jointly promote the demonstration, but we preferred that it be unitary and national and in the end the Assembly decided to convene it with the Council of the Republic and we supported their call. We will be there, but they do not want to confront the two demonstrations that we see as complementary”. This position of Omnium is the one that has also been followed by the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), the Intersyndical or the CIEMEN, which are the ones that usually organize together with the Assembly the demonstration of the Day and which have now become wet with the march of the users.
The majority unions, CCOO and UGT, on the other hand, only support the afternoon mobilization, as well as Greenpeace, the Confederation of Neighborhood Associations of Catalonia (CONFAVAC), Unió de Peasos, the Tenants’ Union, the National Youth Council of Catalonia, Ni un pam de terra or the Catalan Federation of Scouting and Guiding.
