The illusion was lit in the Galileo Galilei room, in Madrid, on February 18. The spokesperson for Esquerra Republicana in Congress, Gabriel Rufián (Santa Coloma de Gramenet, 44 years old), after seven months of statements in defense of a sum of the alternative left to confront the right, seemed to go a step further. His harmony with Podemos, especially with Irene Montero, was known. But the fact that the launch of his proposal was precisely the regional deputy for Más Madrid Emilio Delgado made many think that something different was in the making. Could Rufián's magic unite what was broken in 2019, with the schism between Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón?
The disenchantment exploded a week ago when, in extremis, his party and Podemos reached a specific agreement in Catalonia, leaving the Broad Front out. In this way, the spokesperson repeats as the head of the Esquerra poster and with permission to hold campaign events with the purples in the rest of Spain, thus lending his electoral pull. Later there were specific agreements in the Canary Islands and Valencia, but all far from that single desired ballot, especially in the smaller provinces.
"I came to think that if I came with enough force I could drag down the party apparatus and, probably, I won't be able to. I have failed," Rufián admitted last Friday, asking for forgiveness and thus also being the first to consider dead the operation that he himself had championed. From the beginning, the Republican accepted that it would not be easy, clarified that he would not be a candidate to preside over the Government and flirted in some way with making the leap into state politics. Now he faces managing the frustration of some of the progressive voters with whom he connected. A special barometer on this 40dB political space. for EL PAÍS, last March, showed that 46.4% of those who planned to vote preferred him as leader.
For former Más Madrid deputy Tania Sánchez, Rufián's justification “is a classic of someone who plays alone and has little affection for the collective,” she wrote in X last Friday. “The one who came to unite has dedicated himself to discouraging the pact of the left,” a source from the IU leadership lamented yesterday. Another voice from Movimiento Sumar adds that, in the end, the Republican has used his skills and relevance for his own agenda within his party. “It is difficult for me to understand that Podemos could be on the ERC list and that Rufián would campaign outside of Catalonia,” lamented the former Minister of Social Rights Dolors Bassa, summarizing a widespread feeling within a sector of the Republicans.
Fans and detractors agree that Rufián does not lack magic. His interventions in Congress demanding rights or warning against fascism have enchanted hundreds of thousands of young people. This “digital power” – 1.02 million followers on Instagram, 133,000 gained in the last two weeks – will have a great test on 29-N, given the immense doubt of how they can be converted into votes and whether it will be reflected by both ERC and Podemos. The public perceives him as close, authentic, without filters and, according to the 40dB. survey, four out of ten saw him as the most capable of governing Spain among all the leaders of the left beyond the PSOE.
In reality, Rufián's great trick has been reinvention. And especially the one that started about five years ago. He had started the current legislature in poor shape. The advancement of the general elections in June 2023 was the response to the electoral fiasco of the socialists in the municipal elections in May. ERC also suffered a lot in that election, leaving one in three voters. Rufián, at the express request of Junqueras, presented himself as head of the list in his hometown. The electoral impact of the party's most media letter in the local arena was only 1,426 additional votes and gaining a councilor from the group of three that was in Santa Coloma. It was second force, yes, but after a PSC with 17 councilors and 50% of the vote.
The return of Junqueras to the leadership of the party after leaving prison, thanks to the pardons, had been a relief for a Rufián who was always given ample opportunity to cultivate the character of enfant terrible and free verse that he exhibits in the Congress rostrum and in his organic life in the party. In his absence, the leader in Madrid had seen how on some occasions the then president Pere Aragonès or the general secretary of ERC Marta Rovira disavowed him for some of his verbal excesses in Congress about Puigdemont or when he mentioned Junts' alleged contacts with the Kremlin in 2022.
With the boss back, theoretically his situation improved. Despite the failure in Santa Coloma, Junqueras's move made him a candidate for the 2023 general elections without room for internal debate. The loyalty built on the initial commitment for him in 2015 to go to Congress as an independent continued. The profile of a Spanish-speaking independentist, born to parents from Jaén and Granada who emigrated to Catalonia, fit perfectly into the plans of the ERC management. Only if layers of the population traditionally opposed to independence were mobilized would his plan for independence be credible.
But Rufián did not do well in the early elections: he obtained seven deputies and 411,976 votes. Half of the support and six deputies were left behind. The worst of the whole scenario is that ERC thereby lost the status of Pedro Sánchez's preferred partner, which was shared with Junts per Catalunya. Those of Carles Puigdemont then embraced the path of negotiation that they had so reproached the Republicans and their “votes in exchange for nothing.”
Beyond sectoral criticism and aligning them with the right-wing bloc due to their votes, Rufián disgraces those of Junts who do not recognize that it was thanks to ERC that the way was opened to obtain pardons and ensure that some of those leaders of the process can engage in politics. In Míriam Nogueras's party they still do not forgive the tweet of “155 silver coins”, on October 26, 2017, with which Rufián made evident Puigdemont's attempts to approach the central government to avoid the application of 155.
The frequent struggle with a stronger and more decisive Junts gave Rufián the opportunity to raise the decibels of his criticism and show off polished rhetoric. He stopped being the almost bizarre character who brought out printers in control sessions a long time ago and became someone who must be listened to carefully. Its popularity is certified by demoscopy. According to the CIS, which evaluated the preference for the head of the Government, his popularity was constant from the summer of 2025 - it had a peak in October 2023 - until last October, which reached the historical maximum of 12.3%.
The path to applause and popularity among the electorate has not been without clashes with their own. His distancing from the parliamentary group had a complicated moment when he sided with Junqueras in his fight for control of ERC with Marta Rovira's entourage, in 2023. Rufián aspired for the re-elected president to give him more decision-making power over the bench and dialogue in Madrid, something that has not happened so far.
The leadership chaired by Junqueras could not miss a candidate who is going through the sweetest moment and who will surely make it possible to attract votes in Catalonia beyond its ideological borders. A plan that, however, revives an almost foundational debate. "ERC is divided into two. On the one hand, those who believe that there can be no social liberation without national liberation. And, on the other, those who believe that the national liberation cannot occur without the social liberation first. Now the latter rule," explains Xavier Martínez, visible head of the 1-O collective, critical of the direction led by Junqueras, to explain part of the commotion that the approach to Podemos has implied.
“If I leave ERC, Joan Tardà will kill me,” Rufián confessed on Friday, revealing some underlying movements in the Republican ranks. The former deputy has been preaching for years the need for Esquerra not to be an exclusively pro-independence party, but rather to open itself to being the great repository of the left. An idea that, executed in Catalonia, could lead to something similar in the rest of the State. The mutual reservations between Junqueras and Ada Colau could be one of the explanations why this does not happen, without forgetting that ERC and the Comuns space, heir to the PSUC and Initiative, are electoral rivals. The truth is that Tardà's open-minded approach has never had so many focuses: first, because it has been allowed to be an internal current. Later, because it has the speaker of the 29-N candidate.
"The agreement with Podemos has a referential value. It helps us place ourselves in the imagination of the left and contribute to ensuring that Junts is not played again," explains Tardà. "I was upset that the Comuns have repeatedly urged Rufián to leave ERC. We could not fight on all fronts: convince our party, defend the sum with Comuns and try with Rufián to get the state left to do their homework," confesses the former deputy. Rufián, the great conjurer, will surely have to reinvent himself again after 29-N.
