The path of Xavier Trias to the mayor of Barcelona does nothing but clarify. In principle, the counting of votes that took place yesterday in the City of Justice will not mean any substantial change in the distribution of councilors among the main candidates who were presented in last Sunday’s elections. At the moment, the chances of the commons to overtake and take second place from the socialists are rather slim. At least for now. There is no possibility that commons and Vox will ask the Electoral Board for any clarification. This, despite everything, should not alter the planned schedule. Barring a surprise, the investiture session of the new Barcelona mayor will take place on June 17.
Even the commoners were not really convinced that the comeback was possible. Nor did Trias himself seem worried about the possibility that the still-mayor Ada Colau looked to infuse a last halo of hope into her longed-for government of progressive forces, that the commons could overcome the resentments that separate socialists and republicans and raise a feasible governance alternative.
In fact, completely avoiding this possibility, early in the morning, in front of the microphones of the Ser, the winner of the elections extended his hand to socialists and republicans in order to be invested as mayor with the greatest possible support and, then , we will see how, we can talk about everything, to form a municipal government as stable as possible, capable of facing the ups and downs of this city. For this to be the case, its short advantage in councilors – 11 out of a total of 41 that the City Council has – suggests getting support.
“The logical thing is for me to be mayor, but security, total certainty, is never guaranteed,” he said yesterday. “I would be very surprised if, according to whom, he would be willing to do strange operations”, pointed out the mayor of Junts with reference to the aspirations of the socialist Jaume Collboni to wrest the city’s command rod from him through a kind of re-edition that Valls operation of four years ago, somewhat against nature, which did the same with Colau, when it was the republican Ernest Maragall who won the elections. “I don’t know how to do what he says,” continued Trias. Esquerra is not up for this task, it has a very positive attitude towards us and I don’t see that the circumstances that Collboni says can happen”. Little by little, step by step.
Yes, the Trias offer is not new. He already put it on the table the same election night. But at this moment the context is very different from Sunday. Now the tripartite he talks about seems more plausible and less extravagant. Because gradually the ambient noise lowers the volume, it is no longer so deafening. Perhaps the post-convergent can indeed play the role that Colau has been demanding for weeks and set up his own three-way government, a solid and autonomous executive…
So, all of a sudden, a few hours after the winning candidate insisted on his idea, the socialists replied that they shouldn’t even talk about it, that they wouldn’t, that in no way. Laia Bonet, number three on the Barcelona list of the PSC, said that they will maintain their candidacy in the investiture plenum, that they will bet on Collboni. “We will continue to negotiate, we will not give up on anything, with the exception of the ultra-right, with whom we have not spoken and will not speak”. The still deputy mayor, however, did not close the door to the PP, that Daniel Sirera’s can give away votes.
Trias usually knows how to read the circumstances and also knows how to manage the rhythms. In reality, during this very long week he took a step back, distanced himself from the controversies and let the storm die down. Little by little, step by step. And in this way he hoped that the hypothetical left-wing tripartite of commoners, republicans and socialists would deflate by itself. There was no need to torpedo it.
The pronouncements of the republicans throughout the week lead the PSC to consider the agreement with ERC as lost. “We clearly understood the ERC’s no, they prefer to revive the pro-independence front, we don’t want to put Barcelona in the black hole of the process”, lamented Bonet, accusing those of Ernest Maragall of “betraying that they voted for them thinking they were a formation of the left”.
Despite ERC’s refusal, the PSC does not even want to hear about the possibility of making Trias mayor and insists that it be Collboni. Just draw a red line with Vox. And he does not close the door on the PP despite insisting on the defense of “a stable government that develops progressive policies in the city”.
Also, the election count finally left things as they already were. The PSC remains the second largest force in Barcelona with ten councilors and BComú continues in third place with nine. The count of the Electoral Board. In the end, it developed more quickly than expected. These days there are few who predicted that the results could be announced on Monday. But by mid-afternoon no one was expecting any surprises.
The count in question basically consisted of reviewing the acts of the electoral colleges, to see if they corresponded with the lists sent to the company in charge of managing this electoral call. The invalid votes that had been contested by the proxies were also reviewed. According to this count, the final result is that the PSC obtained 131,923 votes, while Barcelona en Comú was left with 131,581 supporters. Therefore, the distance between second and third has widened from 141 votes to 342 votes.
