What are your plans, Mr Carod-Rovira, for November 29th?

I will check if the results that have been released on the night of the 28th are identical to those shown on the Catalan public television news.

And once you look at that?

I will begin to receive papers from my office, because a few weeks later the Parlament will be formed and there will be a new government around Christmas, but I will not participate in it.

At the age of twelve you founded a political party, CULL (Catalunya Unida i Lliure). It is hard to believe that, with your career in political militancy, you will receive things and move away from politics, in this sense you will have other intentions...

99.9% of the Catalan population is not MPs of Parlament. The normal thing is not to be a Member of Parliament, and I will be a part of that normality. It will be the first time in thirty years that I have not participated in the electoral campaign, since the Nationalists d'Esquerra of 1980, but before joining the Parlament I did politics, as long as I have been a Member of Parliament I have done and will continue to do so. I want there to be a national supremacy of the left and I will continue to work to make him an independentist.

What tools do you hope to have to continue doing politics? The political party is, for the moment, the main instrument of influence.

Catalonia has two basic problems: an economic crisis that affects us all, and a democratic political model that does not prosper. Now politics smells old. This is a problem of the whole democratic system, but along with the concrete crisis of democracy, Catalonia has another problem, that its political parties and their current structures are not valid because they have not been designed for the new stage that Catalonia has entered in the last period; because the debate is no longer between federalism and autonomy, but between federalism and independence.

And so, what has the current party system been designed for?

The structure of the present parties is the result of the struggle against Franco’s regime and the establishment of the state of autonomy. But we are already in a different phase and two options have emerged: federalism or independence. The party system is not adequate because the country’s future national option has changed, the right has no discourse and the left has a classic and obsolete discourse, because federalism is impossible in Spain. If we continue to defend this, Catalonia is condemned to waste time, money and energy for something that Spain rejects.

The way to the federalists. And for the independents? In these elections of the A-28 there is a wide range: the unilateral declaration of independence – for the time being, with a double offer – and the official national consultation on independence by the ERC. Is the offer enough?

The elections are too close to adequately prepare the national process that would lead to sovereignty. There's no time.

Do these offerings fool voters?

I'm very frightened of how lightly people talk about creating a new state. Do you know exactly what they're talking about? If you want, I'll declare independence now and make a toast with cava, but who's going to listen to me? It has not been thought about how the international scenario should be prepared, or what structures for intelligence, security and diplomacy can be created, or what complicity it will have in business and civil society. This is not improvised in a few months, not in a year, not in two, three or four.

First of all, I am very glad that the ERC finally valued as positive something that I proposed three years ago; everyone, without exception, came to me and some wanted to ridicule my proposal. However, the referendum must be the end of a pre-referendum policy and not the fruit of improvisation. I am in favour of referendums, especially when they are won. If we want to keep ourselves in a state of emerging independence, as in Quebec, we must work with rigour and not from the margins.

Do you not see the consultation possible in the next legislature?

I said it three years ago, but then there was a seven-year gap. And if it's not 2014, but 2015, I'll sign it now. But whatever it is, referendums are not organized by one person, nor by a party, nor by a neighborhood association, but are organized by governments. Either it's done right, or the only thing that's going to cause it is more frustration.

Does the ERC management no longer consider you?

I've said everything I said publicly, but not everything I think. I will not make a single comment on the ERC before the elections.

Seven years in the tripartite government, have they been worth it to an independentist?

Without a doubt, yes. What is called political alternation is democratic common sense. Just as socialism returned to the Spanish government after the dictatorship, or the PNV to the Basque Country [País Basc, in its Catalan version], the ERC had to return to the Catalan government to close the national democratic circle. And in the same way, after six decades, Catalonia regained a leftist government. But, in my opinion, the most decisive factor is that Catalonia has elected as president a person named José, whose name is José, because he wants to be called José, and born in Andalusia.

In fact, this bet created a division within the ERC.

His goal was very clear, to end the discourse of the Catalans and other Catalans. What worries me the most right now is that, due to the elections taking place, ethnic classism is emerging among the sectors that think it has a patent to decide which is more Catalan and which is not, especially the conservatives. Fortunately, the country is currently defended by many Rodríguez, along with many Ferrer, and many who move against Catalonia for interest are also called Rodríguez and Ferrer. I'm bothered by these tics. Barcelona, Baix Llobregat and the naïve who thinks that without a metropolitan area Catalonia could be independent, be cared for. I will fight for the disappearance of these ethnic classics tics. And if we start to wonder what people are talking about at home and what they were talking about, it could be really fun. We can start with the bigger aspects.

So ERC’s bet on the PSC deal was worth it? There are those who say that this bet has led to a serious crisis in the party, as well as predicting a significant electoral decline.

To begin with, it’s really surprising that there are people in a party who have more vocation for the opposition than for the government. This will be seen in few places in the world. If it were true that participation in this tripartite government has created a waste, we would have noticed it in the 2006 elections. For me, the best results were not those of 2003, that was already the case, if Pujol was going. But in 2006, after a media beating against me that still persists, and often with some complicity from the internal party structure, the departure of 21 MPs was a success.

And what has this government done?

A
new model of political action has emerged: it includes national pacts with the opposition, the bosses and the trade unions. A conception of Catalonia as a whole territory for infrastructure planning has also emerged. And without a doubt, this has been a legislature for the expansion of uncomplicated foreign policy. In terms of cultural policy, from the creation of the Ramon Llull Institute to the law of cinema, the balance is very positive. Whatever comes next, there is consensus on the basic function that the Catalan language must have for social cohesion, I doubt it was so before; and it has been confirmed that Catalonia is a nation.

If the electoral arithmetic allowed the ERC to have the famous key, would you believe in a third triad?

I cannot answer this question because I am not at the head of any party. I know very well what I would do, but the day after the elections I will be a militant of the ERC base, which pays its dues.

Perhaps ERC has returned to equidistance, the strategy that you used when you were a candidate. Sometimes the ERC seems to oppose the trio and even make some gesture to the CIU at some point.

It is more worrying for me that a party has a vocation for opposition than to govern with one or another democratic political party. It would be worrying for a party to which people have expressed their confidence in their vote to say – once they have obtained their votes – that they want to be in opposition for not accepting their responsibilities. It must be a vocation for government, and if it has the strength to choose, that choice will be conditioned by very tactical situations.