Collboni is already mayor of Barcelona. The economic world initially contemplated this possibility as the threat of continuity of the commons. Today he thinks that, depending on the result of 23-J, he could also end up in socio-vergence.
Concern about what would end up happening yesterday in the Saló de Cent de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona had been activated for days in the offices and noble dining rooms of the Catalan economic power. The first reaction of the economic world after learning the result of the 28-M elections was euphoria. Television footage and photographs in the last days of the Cercle d’Economia are unquestionable witnesses of the spirit of victory with which they were welcomed.
His two bets in that contest, Xavier Trias and Jaume Collboni, depending on the greater or lesser nationalist sensitivity, had come out on top. In those early stages after the counting of the votes, Trias’ mandate seemed almost certain despite Collboni’s insistence on proposing an alternative leftist or progressive government. And above all, the commons of Ada Colau had been dismounted in a third position that left them without the possibility of reissuing the city government.
The proposal of the socialist candidate 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 was digesting a bad electoral result and had to think about saving the furniture on 23-J, called unexpectedly by President Pedro Sánchez just the day after.
Despite this, and from the first moment, contacts with Salvador Illa, the leader of the Catalan socialists, were activated in order to convey to him that for economic activity and the business world, this pact would practically be a declaration of belligerence. Initially everything seemed controlled.
But shortly 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 an independentista, in lonely and in the most perverse version of a common front, to the mayoralty 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, this agreement between pro-independence forces was not a good solution, although it was certainly 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 the bourgeoisie had already blocked the way just four years before to that independence alliance, when Manuel Valls, the then candidate of Ciudadanos, a creation of his, with a long list of first-rate business names, voted to Colau so that Maragall would not agree to the mayor’s office. Like what happened with Daniel Sirera’s PP yesterday, which, torn between the fear of giving up some Trias voters on 23-J or losing them in the rest of Spain, definitely tipped the balance.
And so, by way of needs and discards, during these last critical days the proposal for a socio-vergence was recovered, an alliance between the PSC and Junts, which would reach an absolute majority, and would ensure a government program close to the world. economy in line with the Barcelona Olympic tradition before the irruption of the commons.
Illa was asked 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 renounce to conquer the mayoralty of the capital of Catalonia and Trias to cut himself off. negotiations with ERC. The head of the socialists was transmitted with intense realism to what extent the business world, local and foreign, viewed both the independence front and the continuity of Colauism with hostility. A scenario of aggravated decline would be the synthetic summary.
Illa, despite expressing her awareness of the seriousness of what was explained to her, made it clear, in these tense days and in different scenarios, that the Socialists could not assume such a turn of alliances, with the built-in abdication of their goal of winning the mayoralty . At the gates of 23-J and in full calm assault on the presidency of the Generalitat. Too many insurmountable conditions, again, for the implementation of the long-awaited sociovergence.
But the end result is not so negative for this sector of Barcelona society. Collboni, the candidate of a good part of that social and business field, is today mayor without formal agreements with Colau. In his speech yesterday when he took office, he left the door open both for the agreement with the business world, with explicit references to its importance and the role they should have in the life, future and progress of the city, as well as to its predecessor, whose advanced vision and changes introduced to the city model were praised.
Thus, this long dispute that the economic elites and a good part of the measured classes of the city have been leading with the local administration for eight years is still to be decided. And it will depend on the count of the votes on 23-J: the conformation of the central government and the relations between the different political forces in Catalonia. Sociovergence has not been definitively ruled out, and the fact that Trias announced that he was leaving office may make it even more flattening.
Colau explained 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 for speculators and tourist businessmen. A kind of revenge for what she has been describing as a campaign against her by the most powerful economic sectors. But from the first images it does not appear that she reached her goal yesterday. Now, to wait a little over a month for the pieces to move.
