The PSC will take control of the Diputación de Barcelona this Thursday in the investiture session which, in all probability, will elect the mayor of Sant Boi de Llobregat, Lluïsa Moret, as president. And it will be so thanks to the two pacts of the socialists with En Comú Podem, with the local formation Tot per Terrassa (TxT), led by the mayor Jordi Ballart, and with two independent deputies assigned to JxCat, the mayor of Igualada, Marc Castells, and that of Torrelles de Foix, Servi Vallès.
The arithmetic that will make it possible for the Socialists to return to preside over the supra-municipal entity was confirmed yesterday. In the morning, Moret herself, who has led the negotiations in the PSC to lead the institution, and Ballart signed the “governance agreement” by which the only deputy from the local party, Maria Mercè Balcells, will support the socialist without joining in the supramunicipal government. In the afternoon, the two mayors who participated in the May elections in coalition with JxCat were expected to confirm that they would also vote to invest Moret. They finally did it first thing this Thursday, shortly before the vote.
Castells and Vallèn have announced that as a result of the request of the mayors of the territory, they have reached an agreement to form part of the government of the Barcelona Provincial Council.
These three supports would join the deputies who already have PSC (17) and the common ones (five), with which they are added 25 deputies of the 51 that make up the plenary session, thus exceeding the 21 that the pro-independence front (Junts and ERC), who have not even managed to reach an agreement between themselves. Although the block led by the Socialists does not reach an absolute majority –26 deputies– it will be enough to prevail in the second vote, where only a simple majority is required.
In this way, one of the most tense negotiations resulting from the results of the 28-M elections in Catalonia ends, in addition to the Barcelona mayor’s office, which in fact has been the trigger for everything. The election of Jaume Collboni as mayor of the Catalan capital was decisive for Junts to refuse to reissue the agreement that it had up to now with the PSC in the Provincial Council and to try to find “other majorities”. Salvador Illa’s party always showed its predilection for maintaining the agreement with Junts, and even waited for a rectification from the post-convergents that never came. That made the PSC open the game.
The Socialists explored the possibility of having the support of Junts deputies in the entity, knowing, they say, that a good part of their 12 representatives in the Provincial Council were in favor of reissuing the agreement with the PSC. The members most likely to break the post-convergent voting discipline were Castells and Vallès, who lead two local formations: Junts per Igualada and Impulsem Penedès. Since La Vanguardia uncovered the talks, both mayors have maintained a thunderous silence, which reinforces that the agreement with the PSC is a sincere option.
Following the same strategy, the PSC simultaneously entered into talks with Ballart, who also allowed himself to be loved by Junts in his attempt to wrest control of the Provincial Council from the Socialists. Although Illa’s party and the mayor of Terrassa have had notable differences -Ballart broke the PSC card in the middle of the process- and that the latter governs Terrassa with ERC and Junts, he ended up opting yesterday for Moret in favor of an agreement that will entail “the implementation of transformation projects and programs for the city”.
Tot per Terrassa will not be in the government of the Diputación, instead the commons will be integrated, with one of the vice-presidencies for the former mayor of Castelldefels, Candela López. Predictably, Castells and Vallès will be present, the former with another vice-presidency. In addition, the two independent deputies have agreed on a program for the territory of the three regions that they represent that will make it possible to provide extraordinary investments to develop territorial, economic and tourist balance projects, as well as social projects, linked to climate change and infrastructures for the saving water, among others.
Now it remains to be seen what the consequences are, in terms of the relationship with Junts, of “unmarking”, as they themselves admit. Although Impulsem Penedès says he has the will to “continue working to build a central political space with political forces like JxCat”, in the leadership of the post-convergent party they admit that it will have consequences, although they acknowledge that the collaboration has been very good in all areas, except in the supramunicipal What seems evident is that the municipal group of Junts in the Diputación will have to adapt to the new reality.
In Junts there are not a few local cadres who express their concern about the management of the leadership of the electoral results of 28-M and the few quotas of power achieved. The management also admits the dissonance with some of its mayors regarding the decision not to agree again with the PSC.
The organization secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, explained yesterday the reasons for not giving in to the Socialists: “After the State operation in the Barcelona City Council, we could not embrace the PSC as if nothing was happening”, and that is why he tried to unite a majority with ERC and TxT that will wrest the Provincial Council from the PSC. However, he admitted that with Castells and Vallès “we would go to one if this alternative was viable”, thus acknowledging the probability that they would end up voting for Moret today. But the danger, as in Barcelona, ??was once again that the PP, “the wild card of PSC”, he branded, would once again align with the Socialists.
The fact of not having “guarantees” that the PP would not vote for the PSC again, as claimed by the Republicans, Ballart and the independents, meant that they have finally “played it safe”, excuse post-convergent sources, who acknowledge having probed the PP Catalan to know their intentions, but “in no case to negotiate an agreement”, they clarify.
With control of the Barcelona Provincial Council, the PSC further reinforces its municipal hegemony in Catalonia after the May elections. In addition to the mayoralties of Barcelona, ??Lleida and Tarragona, its strengthened dominance in the Barcelona metropolitan area and its presence in two other provincial corporations, that of Tarragona and Lleida, thanks to separate agreements with ERC. Junts, on the other hand, loses his last great redoubt of power after leaving the Government.
