In the offices and noble dining rooms of the Catalan economic power, anxiety had been activated for days about what would end up happening yesterday in the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council. The first reaction of the economic world after the results of the 28-M elections were known was one of euphoria. Television footage and photographs of the last days of the Cercle d’Economia are the undoubted witnesses of the spirit of victory with which they were welcomed.
The two bets in that contest, Xavier Trias and Jaume Collboni, depending on whether the nationalist sensibility was greater or smaller, had remained in the lead. In those first steps after the votes were counted, Trias’ mandate seemed almost certain, despite Collboni’s insistence on proposing an alternative leftist or progressive government. And above all, the communes of Ada Colau had been left in a third position which left them with no possibility of re-editing the city government.
The socialist candidate’s proposal for a new pact with the commons was not liked at all, although it was considered to have few practical possibilities. It required the support of the ERC of Oriol Junqueras and Ernest Maragall, who had suffered a bad electoral result and had to think about saving the situation on 23-J, convened unexpectedly by President Pedro Sánchez the very next day.
Despite this, and from the first moment, contacts were activated with Salvador Illa, the leader of the Catalan socialists, in order to convey to him that for economic activity and the world of business that pact would practically be a declaration of peace · lightness Initially, everything seemed under control.
But soon after, contacts between Trias and Maragall began, on the one hand – to formalize a legislature agreement between Junts and ERC – and on the other, pressure in Madrid on the PP to block the access of a independenceist, alone and in the most perverse version of a common front, in the mayor’s office of the second Spanish city. Possibility already anticipated by the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, at the meeting of the aforementioned economic forum.
For the economic elite, that agreement between pro-independence forces was not a good way out, although it was undoubtedly better than the alternative of a Collboni government with the participation of Colau as deputy mayor. Regarding the first scenario, it is enough to remember that this bourgeoisie had already blocked the way just four years earlier to the pro-independence alliance, when Manuel Valls, the then candidate of Ciutadans, a creation of his own, with a long list of surnames front-line businesses, Colau voted so that Maragall did not accede to the mayor’s office. Like that of Daniel Sirera’s PP yesterday, which, torn between the fear of resigning on 23-J to some Trias voters or losing them to the rest of Spain, decided the balance definitively.
And so, by way of needs and discards, during these last critical days the proposal of a sociovergence was recovered, an alliance between the PSC and Junts that would achieve just the absolute majority and would ensure a government program close to the economic world in accordance with the Barcelona Olympic tradition before the irruption of the commons.
Illa was the one interpellated by land, sea and air to explore this route and facilitate it, which required convincing Collboni and the PSC to take a step back and give up on conquering the mayorship of the capital of Catalonia and Trias that cut off negotiations with ERC. The head of the Socialists was told with intense realism the extent to which the business world, local and foreign, saw with hostility both the pro-independence front and the continuation of the collusion. A scenario of aggravated decay would be the synthetic summary.
Illa, although he expressed awareness of the seriousness of what he was being told, made it clear, during these tense days and in different scenarios, that the socialists could not assume this turn of alliances, with the incorporated abdication of the objective to get the mayorship. At the gates of the 23-J and in the middle of a quiet assault on the presidency of the Generalitat. Too many insurmountable conditions, once again, for the implementation of the longed-for sociovergence.
But the final result is not so negative for this sector of Barcelona society. Collboni, the candidate of a large part of this social and business sector, is today mayor without formal pacts with Colau. In his speech yesterday, in which he took office, he left the door open both to understanding with the business world, making explicit references to the importance and the role they should play in life, the future and the progress of the city, as in his predecessor, of whom he praised the advanced vision and the changes introduced in the city model.
So, this long dispute that the economic elites and a large part of the measured classes of the city have been starring with the local administration for eight years now has yet to be settled. And it will depend on the vote count on 23-J: the formation of the central government and the relations between the different political forces in Catalonia. Socio-vergence has not been definitively ruled out and the fact that Trias announced that he would leave office may flatten it even more.
Colau made it clear yesterday that his vote for Collboni was not because he trusted either his politics or his person, but, above all, to block the way for Trias, whom he presented as an agent of speculators and tourist dealers . A kind of revenge for what she has described as a campaign against the headquarters of the most powerful economic sectors. But from the first images it does not appear that he achieved his goal yesterday. Now, just over a month to wait.
