Esquerra leader Oriol Junqueras: “We are heir to those who proclaimed the Republic in 1931 and defended it on all fronts”

Esquerra Republicana claims comprehensive majorities, an inclusive vocation, and the internationalist alliances at the event organized on the occasion of Catalonia’s National Day, gathering over 500 supporters

“We are heir to those who proclaimed the Republic in 1931 and defended it on all fronts.” With these words, Esquerra Republicana leader Oriol Junqueras vindicated the legacy of the party before some five hundred people at the event it holds every year on the Diada, Catalonia’s National Day in Barcelona.

The rally was marked by the defence of comprehensive majorities, the party’s inclusive vocation, and its internationalist alliances in the context of this Diada which, as Secretary General Marta Rovira pointed out from her exile in Geneva, “must be a turning point in our continuing, firm path, applying the strategy we know is a winner.”

Ms Rovira thus defended Esquerra Republicana's stake on the path of negotiation that “we have the opportunity to lead vigorously,” and on which “many more people must join us” she prompted.

Esquerra Republicana has established itself as a consensus builder with “majorities at the service of our country,” Mr Junqueras highlighted. Likewise, the President of Catalonia’s Generalitat government and Esquerra’s National Coordinator Pere Aragonès vindicated the party as a useful instrument at the service of the people, referring to the legacy of the political organization in the construction of the Republic in 1931 and its defence through the social policies “that we continue to this day at the new republican Generalitat.”

  Esquerra leader Oriol Junqueras: “We are heir to those who proclaimed the Republic in 1931 and defended it on all fronts”

Mr Aragonès meant to express the party’s commitment to the independence of Catalonia and its defence “as we do every day, as the leading political organization in our country and the first party among Catalonia’s town and city councils.”

For his part, the candidate for mayor of Barcelona ​​Ernest Maragall placed the accent on the capital, speaking of the city as “the spearhead of the freedom of Catalonia” in the hands of Esquerra Republicana.

​​​The event, which gathered over five hundred supporters also featured speeches by Jon Iñarritu, a member of the Spanish parliament for the Basque EH Bildu party, the Secretary General of Esquerra’s Barcelona Federation Anna Nebreda, and ​​Andrea Urbano, the spokesperson for Jovent Barcelona, Esquerra’s youth branch in the capital. The event was also attended by international delegations from Ireland, Kurdistan, Galicia, and the Basque Country, among others, in a show of support for Esquerra Republicana, which weaves alliances everywhere. “We are accompanied by international organizations that fight for the independence of their countries and which side with Esquerra Republicana in Catalonia because they know that we are the only ones able to build the independence of this country,” said Oriol Junqueras.