It seems very far away, but it is not. A PSOE that reaped the worst result in its history in the city achieved the Mayor of Alicante in 2015 for Gabriel Echávarri thanks to the votes of other left-wing parties promoted by the effervescence of 15-M.
With the same councilors (6) as the coalition called Guanyar headed by Miguel Ãngel Pavón, added to the historical 3 councilors harvested by CompromÃs, a left-wing tripartite seized power from a PP that, after almost 20 years, weighed down by the scandalous At the end of the term of its most popular and controversial mayoress, Sonia Castedo, no fewer than ten councilors were left behind. Despite what he obtained a pyrrhic victory that he did not give to his head of the list, Asunción Sánchez Zaplana, even to add a majority with a grown Ciudadanos who was not up for the job either.
It hasn’t been long, but he has been cruel to most of those who starred in that campaign. On the right, the discreet Luis Barcala barely survives, exalted by the march of his head of the list, who renewed the mandate in 2019 in coalition with Ciudadanos, already as a candidate thanks to Casado’s victory in the primaries, turns that life gives .
On the left, no one. Natxo Bellido, spokesman for Compromis in the City Council, was the “last of the Mohicans” of that failed tripartite, perhaps because he was the one who did the least to make it fail, or the one who tried the most not to make it fail.
The always delicate balances of his coalition direct his destiny now to regional politics, while Rafa Mas, another, younger profile of Iniciativa (Bellido es de Més CompromÃs), coming from the trade union world, replaces him in a climate of apparent good coexistence that everyone knows is essential so as not to miss a single vote.
Because in Alicante it has not been possible to reach an agreement with the other coalition, the one formed by Podem and Esquerra Unida, because of… depending on who you ask. The calculation of where each one goes and what possibilities each one has of obtaining a councilorship seems to have weighed more than the ideological differences, which in municipal matters are almost non-existent, if we look at what they say -and vote- each other in the plenary sessions .
Nor has it been easy to determine who was leading the purple candidacy, to assign it a color, which has finally turned to the red of the US, leaving Xavi López, who was already seen at number one, as two of Manolo Copé, probably because some important position He had to deliver Podem and his young Alicante councilor was easier to sacrifice than others.
Thus, all determined to capture for themselves the vote of all the groups offended by the “infiltrator” of Vox in the government team, they emphasize that Mayor Barcala replaces half of the team and instead of resorting to the popular “quarry” independent strip. Everyone doubts that Adrián Santos is capable of retaining at least enough votes to keep Ciudadanos in plenary session. And they are counting on the Vox votes, if they are not retained, they will return to the PP fold. The fifteen councilors that are needed to govern Alicante can be obtained in very different combinations, although nobody is betting that the absolute majority is one of them.
Although Ana Barceló -like Barcala- maintains the opposite, this is not the time to show their cards. The former Minister of Health has spent weeks devoted to the difficult purpose of getting to know a city that is not hers in depth, you are nobody if you have not met her in the last two months, that the same thing parades in a procession at Easter that sweeps the electoral office at eleven o’clock at night.
Her party, and she herself, trust that the high level of knowledge among citizens that her time at the Department of Health brings her, having been the regional face of the fight against the pandemic, will provide her with that point of humanity and closeness that they can incline a neighbor to vote for someone who also has a chance of winning. That she has been able to put together a list to run in the elections at the head of the PSOE in Alicante without bloodshed is an added merit, more than anyone would have expected.
They will look for the weak points of her management and, perhaps, her status as a foreigner, although you have to be careful with that in a city where there are almost more foreigners than aborigines. Barceló says that she does not look at the polls, but they whisper in her ear that the mayoralty is within her reach. From now to 28M, a neighborhood that gets angry, a scandal that affects a member of the candidacy or, more likely, the drift of national political affairs, very influential in a capital whose neighbors tend to show little interest in what local, except to complain about the state of the sidewalks or the dirt, can cause a small transit of votes that the mayor decides.
Then, if a left-wing coalition is possible, everyone claims to have learned from their mistakes. From the outset, the attitude of Barceló and Manolo Copé, who have known each other for years and belong to the “Christian” left, together with a Rafa Mas who went through the PSOE and maintains good relations with his union environment, make it difficult to imagine the friction that from almost the first day occurred between the mayor Echávarri and his partners. Everyone looks to the Puig government as a model, capable of resolving their tensions and weathering confrontations while maintaining a loyalty and consistency without which it is not possible to govern.
