Aliança Catalana poaches entire Junts municipal group in Cambrils as new poll confirms it has overtaken Puigdemont's party

Poll surge for Aliança Catalana

The latest CEO barometer, published last week, confirmed a tectonic shift in Catalan politics. Aliança Catalana would win 23 to 25 seats in an election to the Catalan parliament, up from its current two, leapfrogging Junts per Catalunya. The same survey showed that Junts retains only half of the voters who backed it in the May 2024 regional elections, with 28% of them now opting for Sílvia Orriols's formation. For Junts, the party of former president Carles Puigdemont, the rise of a rival that openly challenges its nationalist hegemony has triggered a chain of defensive moves, the latest of which is the breakup of its coalition government in Girona.

Aliança has been methodically building a territorial network by absorbing disaffected local officials from several parties. Its recruiters do not apply a strict ideological filter: the message is that past political affiliations matter less than the commitment to an openly independence-minded project that prioritises "Catalan identity". The strategy appears to be working, with the CEO numbers providing the ammunition to accelerate poaching operations.

The Cambrils defection

On Monday evening, Aliança's secretary of organisation, Oriol Ges, and the party's institutional policy secretary, Aurora Fornos, travelled to the coastal town of Cambrils in Tarragona province. There they presented Enric Daza, until that moment the Junts spokesperson on the town council, as Aliança's candidate for the 2027 municipal elections. Daza framed the switch as the result of a "deep reflection" shared with the local collective Més Cambrils.

We need to restore order, take care of our streets, strengthen security, boost commerce, protect our tourism model, and put the interests of Cambrils residents back at the centre of all decisions. I am convinced that Aliança Catalana is the force that will allow us to make this change.

Aliança claimed that the two other Junts councillors in Cambrils, Laura Mellau and Teresa Recasens, will also join the party immediately, meaning the entire three-member municipal group transfers to Orriols's formation mid-term. The manoeuvre is technically possible, Aliança sources told EFE, because the electoral list was registered as Compromís per Cambrils and not under the Junts brand, although the group had consistently used the Junts per Cambrils label. However, the picture is not yet fully settled: later reports suggest that Recasens has not publicly confirmed her move and is expected to clarify her decision later on Tuesday. The episode has echoes of an earlier defection in Amposta, where former Junts heavyweight Èric Esteban switched to Aliança in February.

Strategic poaching and the 'fake it till you make it' tactic

Aliança's growth plan goes beyond a few isolated defections. The party is systematically courting local officials from Junts, ERC, and even the Socialists' PSC, as well as former sympathisers of the unionist organisation Societat Civil Catalana. The aim is to create an impression of an organic haemorrhage that forces Junts to look like a party in retreat. Eldiario.es described the approach as "fake it till you make it", noting that Daza's announcement gave the impression the whole group was moving even before his two colleagues had endorsed it. The narrative is powerful: entire local sections switching sides reinforces the poll data and helps Aliança position itself as the natural home for independence-minded voters disillusioned with the failed procès.

Junts reacts: Girona government collapses

On the same day the Cambrils defection was made public, Junts announced it was quitting the municipal government in Girona, the capital city where it had been in coalition with the anti-capitalist CUP under mayor Lluc Salellas. Vice-mayor Gemma Geis had already signalled that her party's patience had run out, and the decision leaves the city administration in a minority with only ERC. Party sources told El Confidencial that the dramatic rupture was motivated in part by fear of Aliança's momentum; Junts needed to show it still had initiative and was not paralysed in a "desert crossing". Defending a pact with the CUP had increasingly alienated Junts's own voters, many of whom are now turning to Orriols. The Girona move and the Cambrils poaching illustrate a single conflict: a fight for the soul of Catalan nationalism ahead of the 2027 local elections.