ERC gets support from Pasqual Maragall

ERC played a trump card in their principal election rally yesterday in the Vall d’Hebron pavilion in Barcelona. The crowd went wild when it was announced on the PA system that former Generalitat President and Mayor during the Barcelona Olympics, Pasqual Maragall, was entering the hall. Maragall was a leader of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) from its inception until he was forced out in 2007, shortly before he announced that he had been diagonsed with Alzheimer’s.

The 1500 attendees at the ERC rally stood up and gave Maragall, accompanied by his wife Diana Garrigosa, a standing ovation. Cries of “President! President!” and applause lasted for several minutes and then flowed into the arrival of ERC’s candidates for the European elections, Josep-Maria Terricabras and Ernest Maragall, the former president’s brother. The two brothers, Ernest and Pascual, sat together in the first row as they waited for the rally to begin.

Here’s the video:

Maragall hugged ERC president Oriol Junqueras and Ernest Maragall, but his warmest embrace was for former ERC president Jordi Carbonell who, despite sitting in a wheelchair, got up to receive the former president of the Generalitat.

Garrigosa, vice president of the Fundació Pasqual Maragall, explained on Monday why she had gone with her husband to ERC’s rally. In declarations to RAC1, she said that the two were in Barcelona on Sunday for a memorial event for Maragall’s grandfather, the poet Joan Maragall. “I told him, isn’t it a shame that it’s at the same time as Ernest’s rally, and he was clearly interested.” In fact, she added, neither Ernest Maragall, candidate for Nova Esquerra Catalana nor the ERC organizers were aware that they had decided to attend: “We didn’t tell anyone.”

Garrigosa insisted that no one from ERC got in contact with them about Pascual Maragall attending the event. “We didn’t say at any point that we were going to the rally and no one asked us to go.” “Pasqual is aware, and he is happy to help out his brother, Ernest.” In another interview on Catalunya Ràdio, Garrigosa said that Ernest Maragall was actually “rather reluctant” for his brother to go to the meeting.

The criticisms—mostly on Twitter—about Maragall’s presence at the ERC rally took Garrigosa by surprise. “I don’t know why there was such a fuss. Isn’t it well known that my husband has always been ready to listen to others?” And she concluded, “Nowadays it’s pretty easy to say just about anything.”