The loss of the mayor’s office of Barcelona, ??the bastion of the commons in Catalonia, has been the worst news for the left-wing conglomerate headed by Ada Colau, because the defeat entails the loss of a forged and sustained leadership in the Catalan capital. So, apart from the life and political future of the ex-mayor, the common people are aware that, depending on their life decision, they are presented with the medium-term challenge of returning “the winning and overcoming character” that Colau gave to the party
“With the loss of the mayor of Barcelona, ??the dilemma of how to reorganize and refound the space is established”, admits a source from the environment of the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, who has the communes as allies in extremeness of the project to be the first president of Spain. But the July election date allows them to postpone the debate: “It is a reflection that we must have, but not now, but from September”, postpones a leader. Now they will give everything to maintain the central government in coalition with the PSOE, where “we only have one ministry”, they remember, that of Universities in charge of Joan Subirats.
It is common for a party to push its own candidate who has not been doing well to step aside to install a new leader, but in the case at hand, the candidate personified the party, and for now in the party lacks comparable leadership.
“The future will be marked by her”, points out another leader of the commons, who warns that “Ada will be there for a while” because “there is no one in the party right now capable of getting 20% ??of the votes” in an election, as Colau did on 28-M in Barcelona.
The future of the former mayor is unknown. After closing the doors of Congress herself and taking it for granted, also in the party, that she will not be in the opposition for four years, the only thing that is certain is that she will be “involved to the maximum” in the campaign of the generals and which will persist so that Barcelona en Comú enters the municipal government of Jaume Collboni. In the long term, the party would not want him to go home, so there is speculation about an international position or even to try it in the next Catalan elections. “She has always said no, but if she decided to, I don’t think anyone would see it as a bad thing”, says another leader with an institutional position. But there are also many objections to this path, because it would mean displacing another of the leaders that has emerged strongly, that of Jéssica Albiach.
“If Colau leaves, Albiach, the parliamentarians, the mayors, Ernest Urtasun…” they point out from Sumar. But the former mayor is still one of the three coordinators of Catalonia in Common, along with Albiach and Candela López, whose mandate expires in two and a half years. Organically, they are there despite the defeat in Barcelona because “there has been no internal opposition” and “it is not a cushioned leadership”, but “the most active role of the commons”, they emphasize.
What nobody wants is to see Colau acting as a leader in the shadows, as Pablo Iglesias does in Podemos. “We’ve had enough of that,” agreed all those consulted.
The commons made “a bet to diversify” power with Colau, Albiach and López, but many authoritative voices believe that “Albiach has the capacity to bring together” the different sensibilities of the left-wing galaxy. They recognize her as having “shown her face” in complicated moments and being “very well valued internally”, both by those close to Colau, the people of the old ICV, and by Podemos. Albiach “has established himself” in a short time and “has a good relationship with the different sensibilities of the organization”, they corroborate.
But the process that opens up to the commons in the post Colau era will have to take into account the changes that already exist within the party and those caused by the general elections. After the municipal elections, the cadres of the party who drink from the old ICV have gained internal weight. Despite the fact that members and strangers of the extinct ecosocialist formation confirm that there is no premeditated strategy, but an organic and political position that remains under the wave of Colau and Podemos that swallowed everything in 2017, some are “worried about this image “. “It is not an organized thing, but it is something that is being installed” and with which “we lose plurality”, warns another source, who bets on “being intelligent” to maintain the representation of different sensibilities who cohabit in the commons.
