Republican Ernest Maragall announced yesterday that after the next plenary session he will leave Barcelona City Council. He did it by surprise, unexpectedly, while defending an ERC proposal regarding the Via Laietana police station, somewhat overshadowing the already expected farewell of the common Jordi Martí Grau, who is leaving the City Council to assume the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Culture .
And a few days ago in these same pages the former mayor, winner of the last elections and leader of the opposition, Xavier Trias, already dropped that he would most likely march during the first months of next year.
The goodbye of some of the most important faces of Barcelona municipal politics in recent times will do nothing other than delay the negotiations for the governability of Barcelona even further. The Junts, BComú and ERC groups are committed to a recomposition.
Mayor Jaume Collboni sighs with some relief. The constitution of Pedro Sánchez’s government did not diminish his team. And the truth is that the socialist is in no hurry to agree with anyone. If he does it, it is because the pressures of others leave him no other choice. So he will calmly contemplate the restructuring of the opposition.
A couple of weeks ago, number 2 on the ERC list, Elisenda Alamany, said very naturally that Maragall would not exhaust her mandate, and that when she left she would assume command of the group. Everyone was more or less clear that after the surprise of the socialist Jaume Collboni, who at the last minute snatched the mayoralty from Xavier Trias – and therefore a mayoral tenure from Maragall himself –, the republican’s hours in the City Council would be scarce. . Maragall’s departure leaves Esquerra completely upset.
The former socialist was the first Republican candidate to win an election in Barcelona, ??despite the fact that the Valls operation later left him one step away from mayor, and that in the following elections he lost half of his councilors. Faced with this succession of cataclysms, those of Esquerra face the remainder of their mandate with nails, well prepared to practice a very tough opposition. At this time Alamany’s leadership is not indisputable.
Apparently Jordi Martí’s departure is not as decisive as Maragall’s. But the truth is that with it the commons lose their plumber, the man who among their ranks best knows the ins and outs of local administration, the one most prepared to face budgets of billions of euros, the negotiator capable of transforming a defeat in victory that every formation needs.
In addition, lately it was gaining political relevance, especially as the wait for a possible call from Madrid that ultimately did not occur kept Ada Colau at half speed. The roles in BComú are also unclear. To what extent will Janet Sanz gain prominence?
And one of the people who will most regret Trias’s departure, when it finally happens, will be Mayor Collboni. The truth is that they understand each other very well. The relationship with Jordi Martí Galbis is also very fluid. The main obstacle here is that the Junts have one more councilor than the socialists, and any government pact they can reach will seem strange.
