The figure of Rigol
Quim Dorca, a businessman and one of those liberals by conviction to whom it is good to pay attention, distinguished two types of condolences. Thus, he recommended the respectful “to heaven be,” for good men, and for those who are not so good, “God has forgiven him.” Without a doubt, in Rigol it is one of the first. The former president of Parliament, a man of Christian belief and committed to the traditional Catalanism of the Franco underground, has died leaving a legacy of serene and, above all, humanist politics. Yes, Rigol practiced and even had its own regulations on how and when to pay attention. Far from stridency and imbued with an almost Calvinist discipline.
A respected politician
Rigol always said, with a discreet humor, that as president of the chamber he had to look good with the opposition, because “with their” he was already in bad shape. Despite the fact that he showed a reverential and vital respect for President Jordi Pujol. Personally, I thank Rigol for being one of the politicians who always picked up the phone. A disposition that is light years away from many deputies who now stuff their mouths with sovereignty and have to ask a party worker for permission to talk to a journalist. Without making any fuss, he believed in the sovereignty of parliament, deputies and institutions.
A second political youth
His spirit, which wrapped his explanations with oratory marked by a deep and conclusive voice, helped carry out the 9-N consultation. He was the man chosen to coordinate the National Pact for the Right to Decide, consolidating an image of democratic unity as commendable as it was effective. That provision gave him a second political youth. Rigol, a highly respected man, won the media and ideological battle against Josep Antoni Duran y Lleida, with whom, until that moment, he had not discussed any order beyond some intimate disagreement. He was the leader of the 2015 Union national council revolt in Hospitalet del Llobregat that would lead to the founding of Democrats, a formation that he later abandoned.
A political legacy
With Rigol comes a lively way of doing politics. The politics of formalism and principles, of ideology and training, of judgment and respect, of a commitment that transcends your life. One of his writings stressed that politics is trying to ensure that, through the sense of culture, the sense of language, the sense of historical consciousness, the sense of participating in the same territory, “we are capable of opening ourselves to each other and to welcome those who come here and are not like us. Rigol always asked politicians “not to lose the dimension of the country.” Civic sense, responsibility and cohesion as a people. This is the legacy we hope Rigol does not take to heaven. May he rest in peace, president.
