Jaume Collboni, favorite in Barcelona, by Iván Redondo
Seven months ago we said that there was a triple tie for mayor: Comunes, ERC and PSC. Today the numbers are again very clear: the PSC with Collboni is the favorite with 11 councillors. But nothing is set in stone. Everything will be decided in the details.
We start at the beginning. No one can deny that people of two national identities, Spanish and Catalan, coexist in Catalonia. Escaping this reality is like living in an algorithm. We are of different identities and we resolve conflicts through dialogue or democracy is the summary and the bridge that unites territories, ideologies and generations. In Spain, the general elections of 28-A were a plebiscite and society expressed itself democratic without reservations, social in the face of budgets that chronic inequalities, and multinational, here are the Basque and Catalan results, together with the most powerful mobilization of the left side in 11 years On 14-F in Catalonia there was also a plebiscite with results known to all: victory for Salvador Illa and the PSC for the first time in 14 years and for Pere Aragonès and ERC returning to the presidency of the Generalitat 41 years later.
PSC and ERC are therefore today the institutional parties, the strongest thanks to this plebiscite, framed in an expectation of specific agreements and multiple discrepancies. However, after the breakup of the Government, the state calendar is again synchronized with the Catalan, at least until the municipal ones and here the PSOE comes into play. In all the electoral victories of Pedro Sánchez, the future of Catalonia has been the protagonist, behind it lay a new understanding of Spain as the great electoral engine. Forgetting about it in a year and a half has generated a great demobilization on the left side. Being today in a dystopian scenario in which the PSC could win the next municipal votes in Catalonia, while the PP would win in the rest of Spain. And faced with the great paradox that Aznar’s dream is getting closer every day: winning general elections without Catalonia, after wresting Andalusia from the socialists.
In all of Sánchez’s electoral victories, the future of Catalonia has been the protagonist
Those who, considering that the Catalan question is causing the left to lose votes, still do not understand the spirit of regeneration and reforms behind the motion of censure and the successive electoral victories. They commit the gravest of political errors. On the contrary, the Catalan question generates the necessary conditions to win them all. La Moncloa is won by talking about the Spain that we deserve, whether or not there is a war, with and without a pandemic, and although 40 of the 55 basic products in the shopping basket have become more expensive in the biggest escalation since 1994. As pointed out by the economist David Lizoain the need to do what is necessary is giving way to a new era common sense; what was once radical is becoming the new pragmatism. And in territorial matters it translates into the Spain we want.
Whoever does not attend to these observations will not understand how the city of Barcelona will emerge. Seven months ago we explained in this war room that there was a triple tie for mayor: Comunes, ERC and PSC obtained 9-10 councillors. Today, after analyzing 20 polls, the initial numbers are once again very clear: the PSC with Jaume Collboni is the favorite with 11 councilors, ERC 10, Comunes 10, Junts 8 and PP 2. Nothing is set in stone and the election will be decided by details. It is enough for Collboni to leave as councilor of the municipal government to consolidate his advantage and have his own speech, it is enough for Ada Colau to make a takeover bid for ERC visualizing an agreement with Aragonès to neutralize Ernest Maragall or it is enough for Junts to bet on Xavier Trias so that he enters In race. No one is too far or too close. And, beware, removing Junts from the stock market, without listing on the continuous market, could combine the material and cultural fencing proposed by Josep Rius. While that welcome to the worst is fulfilled or not, in the brilliant expression of Francesc-Marc Álvaro.
Catalonia, as Lola García recalls in The wall , it will not be arranged “by the book”, Rajoy’s maxim in ode to manual bureaucracy. Catalonia is torn between the democratic reunion of Azaña or the entailment without solution of Ortega y Gasset. Society tells us that it wants solutions. Maintaining the tension of the plebiscite guarantees victory. Call you PSOE, PSC, ERC or Junts.
Next week
PSOE-PP pacts
Tomorrow new face to face Pedro Sánchez-Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the Senate. And it seems that, unlike the previous one, the tone will be very different. The anger will be put aside and the pacts such as the judiciary will take shape. Proposing agreements is the first step to recover the half million voters who have left the Socialist Party for the Popular Party. The second is that the idea of Spain and the new team proposed by the president, when he so decides, be the one that connects with the generations that are really the driving force.
the hawk eye
72% want to change in Barcelona
Some interesting details of the twenty surveys analyzed: 1) 58 percent disapprove of the management of the current municipal government team, they only support it with 7 voters from the Commons; 2) the mayor Ada Colau, fails in valuation with a 3 out of 10, only Jaume Collboni, Ernest Maragall and Xavier Trias are above 4 in their valuation in the polls; and 3) insecurity, cleanliness, mobility and housing are the central issues for 7 out of 10 citizens of the Catalan capital. The same, eye, who want to change in Barcelona.