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Republican Left of the Valencian Country Esquerra Republicana del País Valencià | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Josep Manel Barberà i Sorlí |
| Secretary-General | Núria Arnau |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Headquarters | C/Erudit Orellana, 10-1 València,Spain |
| Ideology | Catalan nationalism Valencian nationalism Left-wing nationalism Catalan independence Republicanism Democratic socialism Països Catalans |
| Political position | Centre-left toleft-wing |
| National affiliation | Republican Left of Catalonia |
| Regional affiliation | Acord Ciutadà (2015) |
| European affiliation | European Free Alliance |
| Colours | Orange |
| Local Government | 20 / 5,784 [1] |
| Website | |
| locals | |
Republican Left of the Valencian Country (Catalan:Esquerra Republicana del País Valencià, ERPV) is a Valencian leftnationalist and republican party.
The original ERPV was founded in 1933, then disbanded in 1935. In 2000 the vacant ERPV name was taken by the party resulting from the merge ofEsquerra Republicana de Catalunya's (ERC) Valencian section and the Front pel País Valencià (Front for the Valencian Country).
ERPV is currently the main explicit sponsor of theCatalan Countries independence in theValencian Country, where poor electoral results so far limit its participation to a marginal role.[2]
The party was founded during theSpanish Second Republic and became established under the leadership ofGaietà Huguet, inCastellón. In 1935, he impelled a merging with the partyEsquerra Valenciana (Valencian Left, EV), founded in 1934 and led by Vicent Marco Miranda (ex-Mayor ofValencia),Josep Benedito,Miquel Duran de València andManuel Sanchís-Guarner. After Vicent Marco obtained in 1936 the act of deputy in Valencia within the candidatures of thePopular Front both parties joint in a common parliamentary group in the Spanish Congress with the name of Catalan Left.
In 1935, ERPV disbanded and merged as a fraction in EV. TheSpanish Civil War truncated many political projects in which Esquerra Valenciana participated, the most important of which was a project of a Valencian statute of autonomy with the official name ofPaís Valencià (rendered in English by some as "Valencian Country", seenames of the Valencian Community), which would have granted similar autonomous powers as with the other so-called historical nationalities inSpain (namely, Andalusia, Basque country, Catalonia and Galicia). In spite of it, Esquerra Valenciana, the main party in which ERPV had diluted, reached their maximum growth in that period, arriving to exceed 10,000 affiliated.
Under the regime ofFrancisco Franco, Esquerra Valenciana (the party which ERPV had merged with in 1935) was suppressed. Then, after Franco's death, theSpanish Transition and the advent of democracy in Spain, ERPV was not revived.
In 2000, a group of members of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) in Valencia, decided to revive the ERPV vacant acronym and, led byAgustí Cerdà, claimed to haverefounded the party as the Valencian branch of ERC.
Then, 2003 saw ERPV's comeback to democratic elections in the Valencian Community, after more than 60 years of its last electoral contest. The party participated in elections to a number of Valencian city councils. It did not achieve representation elsewhere other than inSueca.
ERPV ran in the 2007 election to theCorts Valencianes under the "Esquerra" name, achieving 0.49% of the total votes[3] which was far from the 5% threshold needed to achieve representation. Out of a total of 5,622 local councilors elected in the 542 Valencian municipalities, ERPV is currently represented by four local councilors in three municipalities, which limits its participation in Valencian politics to a marginal role.[2]
Despite its status in Valencia, at the2004 Spanish general election ERPV's leader Agustí Cerdà was elected as an MP himself at theSpanish Parliament. This was made possible by including him in the ERCelectoral ticket in Catalonia instead of running for any given Valencian electoral constituency, where ERPV does not achieve any representation other than the few councilors aforementioned.
Then, at the following2008 Spanish general election, which saw ERC's results halved in Catalonia,Agustí Cerdà was one of the incumbents who lost his seat.
| Date | Votes | Seats | Status | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | ±pp | # | ± | |||
| 2003 | 7,609 | 0.3% | — | 0 / 89 | — | N/A | 6th |
| 2007 | 11,686 | 0.5% | +0.2 | 0 / 99 |  0 | N/A | 6th |
| 2011 | 11,129 | 0.5% | ±0.0 | 0 / 99 | 0 | N/A | 8th |
| 2015 | 106,917 | 4.3% | N/A | 0 / 99 | 0 | N/A | * |
| 2019 | 5,069 | 0.2% | N/A | 0 / 99 | 0 | N/A | 10th |