Ada Colau said, during the campaign, that her Barcelona was leading the way, but for her, finally, the route at the head of the Consistory has ended. In contrast, the mayor who deposed with the invaluable aid of the State sewers, eight years ago, now has all the numbers (and all the legitimacy) to return. If there are no very strange pacts (which yesterday Pedro Sánchez helped to distance with his electoral advance), Xavier Trias will regain the mayorship and, with him (and others), his political space can regain ground and identity.
Because, undoubtedly, Salvador Illa is the national leader who emerges stronger from these elections. Undoubtedly, also, the most touched is a Pere Aragonès, mute on the night of 28-M. But these two realities, a PSC that is rising and an ERC that is at a historic low, leaving more than three hundred thousand votes, coexist with another headline after the municipal elections: Together they survive again (more than well) in their persistent gravediggers. Now, in a local area that is crucial when consolidating any political project.
This has a lot to do with Trias, but also the political school of other junta candidates who have succeeded in historic places in this area. Together they have been the first force in victories in municipalities (342). And the PSC had the most votes (23.7%), but followed by Junts (18.3%), which surpassed an ERC (17.2%) which, just four years later, lost the mayorships of Tarragona and Lleida, and in Barcelona it goes from being the first to being the fourth force. Rise and fall in a sigh. A dynamic that, if ERC does not make an effective and credible turnstile, could perfectly be replicated in the next parliamentary elections. And they know it.
Partly because of the latter, a tripartite sum in Barcelona that would make the second, Jaume Collboni, against the first, Trias, mayor is highly improbable. It would be reckless, for ERC, to affect a Cainite dynamic. But what’s more, as if this perspective weren’t deterrent enough, the call for Spanish elections in July has come to dispel doubts: how should ERC give the mayorship to the Socialists in the face of a Junts that has won, in four days of a new appointment with the polls?
The independence movement as a whole has left a significant chunk of its vote at home, for its own and shared demerits. But, even though ERC has been identified as the one who has most baffled and disappointed this base of voters, Junts cannot relax either. On the contrary. It has regrouped much of the vote that had been dispersed after the implosion of Convergència and is undoubtedly the brand that inherits most of its capital, but it still has a lot to recover.
And this is where the Trias style makes its way. By temperament, conciliatory and dialogical. For the ability to build teams synonymous with good governance and with political muscle. To add diverse sensitivities, disjointed brands, under the same umbrella. And to do it without national resignations and without renouncing a political past that is part of Junts’ present success.
