Ada Colau trusts the two heavyweights of her government, the second deputy mayor, Janet Sanz, and the sixth lieutenant, Jordi Martí, to accompany her in her attempt to remain in charge of Barcelona City Council for another four years. The mayoress, the only candidate to head the BComú list on May 28, will present today the first 20 names of her candidacy in a new stage of the party’s primaries, which will conclude on March 30.
Janet Sanz, number 3 on the list four years ago, and Jordi Martí, who ranked fifth, have assumed the main responsibilities on the side of the commons throughout this term in which they have shared government with the PSC. And the firm conviction of the BComú leader is that they continue to play a determining role if she manages to revalidate the mayoralty. She considers them essential and has personally let both of them know.
As established in the BComú primary regulations, Ada Colau has held a series of meetings since January 9 – eight in total – with the “activists” of the party. In these meetings, he has outlined the projects that he wants to propose for the next term – in line with those of the last four years – and has listened to the proposals for criteria and profiles of the candidates who will form part of his list, in the that they will be there, as they themselves have communicated, the fourth deputy mayor, Laura Pérez, and the councilor for Climate Emergency, Eloi Badia.
Unlike the municipal ones of 2019, Colau has ruled out the signing of a number two of bells. Except for a last-minute surprise, there will not be a figure similar to that of Joan Subirats, the political mentor of the mayor who is in second place on the list and who served as Deputy Mayor for Culture for two years, until July 2021. At the end of that year, Subirats was rescued for active politics, when he replaced Manuel Castells as Minister of Universities.
In addition to not going to the transfer market, the mayoress has not thought of a succession number two either, despite the fact that both she and her party have ruled out any possibility of running again in 2027. On that date, without Colau at front, the commons will have to face their reinvention and leave behind a stage totally marked by the figure of their almost unique referent.
BComú has applied with Colau the exceptionality clause that allows in some cases to overcome the limitation of two four-year terms. This formula will also serve for Janet Sanz to opt for what will be her fourth term, the third with the commons and a previous one with the initials of Iniciativa per Catalunya.
The mayoress defends the continuity of Sanz because it represents the urban transformation that she has promoted, despite the enormous controversy that it has provoked.
The list that Colau will partially present today will have, at least as regards the positions of safe election, an air of continuity, with some additions that seek to reflect the diversity of Barcelona society and that will nurture BComú’s candidacy from the base of this formation and the entities that orbit around it.
Another of the members of the government team, the person in charge of Health, Gemma Tarafa, is also called to occupy a prominent place in a list in which they have all the numbers to be other of the current councilors of the commons, such as the person in charge of Eixample, Pau González
Guille López, spokesman for the neighborhood platform l’Eixample Respira, which calls for limiting the circulation of cars in the Barcelona district of l’Eixample, will be integrated as number four of the candidacy led by Colau.
Computer engineer and activist, Guille López has been one of the voices in defense of a city model that limits polluting private vehicles in recent years.
