Xavier Trias energetically shook the long pre-campaign for the municipal elections on May 28 when, on December 12, he announced that he would run for these elections with the intention of recovering the mayoralty of Barcelona that was taken from him by Ada Colau in 2015 A month later, the survey published by La Vanguardia, which was followed by many others with similar results, was the first to detect the movement of earth caused by the convergent political veteran, who entered the battle of Barcelona like a bulldozer.
To the shortlist of favourites, Ada Colau, Ernest Maragall and Jaume Collboni, who practically since the leader of the commons got her second inauguration had been maintaining a balanced pulse that did not go anywhere, was added an uncomfortable guest, not for Colau , delighted in life with being able to polarize the electoral dispute with her predecessor in office, but yes for Collboni and, above all, for a Maragall who, according to the polls and the media and citizen perception, the irruption of Trias -and probably the wear and tear that governing Catalonia in a minority is causing in ERC–reduced its options to repeat the result of four years ago.
Since that appearance on the scene of the mayor of Junts who in no way reminds us of the Junts of the process and the challenge to the current legality, of Carles Puigdemont and Laura Borràs (in fact, the initials of the party do not even appear in the Trias for Barcelona candidacy) , standard bearer of Barcelona tired of the model of the city drawn up by Colau, gives the sensation of that seismic movement that has barely had perceptible aftershocks.
In a context like this, the electoral campaign that will officially begin at midnight next Friday appears more decisive than ever, and even more so if a few thousand of those many still undecided Barcelonans will not defoliate the daisy until the very moment of their meeting with the polls.
Except for a major surprise, the winner of the municipal elections in Barcelona – not necessarily the next mayor or mayor – will be by a meager difference in votes. And given the prospect of maximum fragmentation among the big four, it would not be surprising if the 161,000 votes garnered by ERC four years ago or the 176,000 that marked Colau’s ceiling eight years ago were enough to secure first place on the podium on the night of May 28. .
Now that 40 years have passed since the first victory of Pasqual Maragall in the elections of May 8, 1983, how far are those 413,034 votes that gave victory, not an absolute majority, to the mayor whose legacy, in a crude way, simplistic and out of context, still today some insist on arrogating.
It is paradoxical that elections with such an uncertain result are preceded by a pre-campaign, and surely a campaign, so predictable, with few twists in the script, with almost all the cards marked and the roles of each of the protagonists so well defined.
If anything, judging by what has happened in recent weeks, only some issues that totally or partially escape municipal jurisdiction (the drought, the ordeal in Rodalies, the conflictive occupations) will find a place in the political arena (or in the mud), where there will be no shortage of the classics of yesterday and today (the tram, citizen insecurity, lack of housing, tourism management…) nor the issues that occurred in the Colau era, such as superblocks and their effects on Mobility.
The result of Barcelona will not only be relevant for the future of a city that continues to be admired abroad as well as suffered by thousands of Barcelonans, a city that is still capable of taking an intoxicating and unnecessary overdose of self-esteem –placebo effect– because a A trio of international VIPs chooses her to treat themselves to a few days of feasting.
What the people of Barcelona decide in three weeks will be read in Catalan and Spanish terms. A Trias victory could mark a change of course in Junts and anticipate a revival of the old Convergència.
ERC, which has been engaged for some time in disputing the PSC for metropolitan hegemony, cannot afford a fiasco in the capital of Catalonia.
Yolanda DÃaz’s adventure will start with more or less provisions depending on the result of Ada Colau. For the PP, adding a couple more councilors to its meager representation of two councilors in the Barcelona City Council would mean normalizing a bit what is not normal for a party with aspirations to govern Spain again.
And for Pedro Sánchez, placing Jaume Collboni in the mayor’s office would be equivalent to applying an antidote against defeat in many other Spanish capitals, including Madrid, and oxygen for the general elections. It is not surprising that the President of the Government has chosen Barcelona to close the campaign on May 26, something unusual in local elections and with only one precedent, led by Sánchez himself, in the 2019 general elections.
