The municipal elections have to define whether Marta Farrés (PSC) will continue for four more years in the Sabadell City Council, where she entered through the front door in 2019. The government pact with Podem and the agreements with Junts have given her stability in a complex mandate due to the impact of the pandemic, but where it has been able to materialize projects on track in the previous term such as asphalting or the urbanization of public spaces, a heritage claimed by ERC and the Crida per Sabadell in the opposition.
The PSC-Junts understanding can shake a possible alternative sovereign bloc to the current government, an arithmetic where it is necessary to contemplate the return of two old familiar faces, that of Joan Mena (Comuns) and Joan GarcÃa (CS), and the more than probable return of the PP in plenary.
Four years ago, Farrés presented herself with the aim of being the first woman to take office in the capital of Valles, with the experience of having been a councilor during the government of Manuel Bustos. In her backpack, she defeats her in primaries for leading the socialist project in low hours for being the candidate in 2015.
Now, at the end of his term, his leadership is firm, with stability given from within the party with the incorporation into the local executive of the only councilor who obtained Podem, Marta Morell, and the agreements to carry out city projects with Together with LluÃs Matas. However, Morell was expelled from the party for irregularities and is presented with a platform that she has created to be able to run in the elections: Sentim Sabadell.
Morell’s space is recovered by an old acquaintance of the plenary, the now deputy in Madrid, Joan Mena, who leads the candidacy of Sabadell En Comú Podem. The objective is to bring together the confluence of acronyms that appeared four years ago with Podem and Comuns represented from different formations. This separation caused the group to lose the four councilors it had had between 2015 and 2019 to cede their representation in plenary to the only councilor who obtained Morell’s candidacy.
Cs also recovers a history in the city, Joan GarcÃa, current secretary of the Parliament table and Sabadell candidate in 2007, 2011 and 2015, when the formation obtained representation for the first time in plenary. He does so after the resignation in the act of councilor of Adrián Hernández, a candidate in 2019 and that Marta Farrés has signed, integrating him into her socialist lists as number 6.
After four years ago the now Minister of Territories and the former mayor, Juli Fernández, obtained the best ERC results in Sabadell, going from 4 to 7 elected representatives, his resignation as councilor has led to the launch of his former councilor of Acció Social, Gabriel Fernández, as a candidate for mayor. His alliance with the EUiA is drawn as an incentive to join forces and aspire to revalidate the good results of the past elections.
Something similar happens in Crida per Sabadell, where Maties Serracant, the mayor during 1-O, stepped aside, which placed Nani Valero as a candidate for mayor of Sabadell. Meanwhile, in Junts, LluÃs Matas took the reins of the party with the departure of Ciuró and has obtained the support to be the mayor. In your case, the PDeCAT, which is presented through the Ara Pacte Local list, can hinder you with the electoral rights obtained with the 2019 results. It will do so with Amadeu Papiol as a candidate.
The PP, which has experienced municipal politics from the barrier this mandate, having not obtained representation in 2019, aspires to recover a place in plenary. The then candidate, Esteban Gesa, has left the city to be mayor of Sant Joan Despà (Baix Llobregat) and his right-hand man, Cuca Santos, has stayed in his place.
Despite the diversion of efforts to deal with the pandemic, the city has taken steps forward to improve public space and urban planning. Proof of this is the street paving program, the pacification of Calle Industria or the remodeling of the Plaza Major promenade, in permanent provisional status since the 1990s. A large part of the projects were administratively on track since the last mandate, reason for which ERC and Crida, formerly in the government and now in the opposition, have raised their voices to claim their share of these now finished projects.
The large improvement project located in Porta Sud remains to be carried out, the access from the C-58 motorway that has to rearrange the routes of the airport, the Zona Hermètica, the Grà cia neighborhood and Gran Via and also reduce the pressure on the polygon of Sant Pau de Riu-sec. Precisely this last area is in the consolidation phase, with the construction of warehouses and even a hotel on empty land for more than 10 years.
The ghost of the Mercuri case has reared its head again in the final stretch of the mandate. The trigger was the dismissal of the until then third deputy mayor, Jesús RodrÃguez, and his insinuation that there could be irregularities in the management of the contract for the street cleaning and garbage collection service with the Smatsa company.
The award of the service occupies an important part of the Mercuri case. The fact that the name of the company appeared at the end of the mandate has been a weapon that the opposition has used to force an extraordinary plenary session in order for a commission to analyze whether the irregularities manifested by the former councilor were true or not.
However, the plenary session knocked down the proposal, while the mayoress, Marta Farrés, took RodrÃguez’s insinuations to the court, alleging that it was a crime of coercion, and after affirming that she had been threatened.
The Quart CInturó debate, reduced to the concept of Ronda Nord or Ronda Vallès, in the case of the road that would link Sabadell and Terrassa, has also been electoral fuel in recent months. The PSC of Farrés defends him, saying that he is aligned with the interests of part of the citizenry, the business world and even with the mayors of Terrassa and Castellar del Vallès. ERC, which has opposed it due to the impact it would have on the natural environment, has had to defend its position while the Government agreed with the Socialists to incorporate it into the Generalitat’s budget.
