The PSC is clear that it is willing to reissue the agreement with JxCat in the Barcelona Provincial Council. They have been saying it for days but what happened with the Barcelona mayor’s office has opened an intense debate in the post-convergent formation, where doubts assail whether it is worth reissuing the agreement. Faced with these doubts, the Catalan socialists ask Carles Puigdemont’s party to weigh the pros and cons after four years in which the agreement has worked “very well”, they assess, and therefore avoid taking it hotly or obeying “vengeful” positions.
The last voice of the PSC to endorse the party’s will to repeat the pact with Junts has been Meritxell Batet, the head of the party’s list for Barcelona for the general elections on 23-J, who has called on the post-convergent formation to act with ” responsibility” and not take “vengeful decisions” for what happened in Barcelona.
And it is that in the PSC they are at the expense of what Junts decides, where many voices are now against repeating the agreement with the Socialists, despite the fact that the mayor Xavier Trias advocates agreeing with Illa’s party and not doing so It would mean giving up one of the few strongholds of power they would have left, along with the Girona mayor’s office and its council.
Each sector is armed with its own arguments. The supporters of the agreement remember the power that sharing the government of the supra-municipal entity entails, especially after having left the Government, not having obtained the mayoralty of Barcelona or the councils of Tarragona and Lleida. And the opponents point out that with these precedents the agreement with the PSC would fuel greater independence abstention in the general elections of 23-J, precisely the problem against which the post-convergent formation is fighting in the face of the polarization that the appointment with the polls is generating.
The Barcelona Provincial Council is the jewel in the municipal crown due to the large budget it manages, which allows it to help alleviate the needs and services of the municipalities in the metropolitan area. But Junts’ doubts mean that the Socialists still do not have “nothing assured” yet, which is why they have established contacts with other formations with representation in the entity, such as ERC and En Comú Podem.
The Republicans don’t seem to be up for the job. Its leader, Oriol Junqueras, this week ruled out supporting the PSC to preside over the Barcelona Provincial Council, and the commons only contemplate a left-wing pact.
While Junts defoliates the daisy, the PSC pushes for the balance to lean towards the agreement because the Republicans are the main enemy in the metropolitan area. “When something works, it is good that we political leaders act responsibly and, therefore, we can continue working to benefit the citizens of the province,” Batet pointed out when taking stock of the PSC and Junts government in the Provincial Council.
The president of Congress and candidate for Barcelona believes that “Junts can make the same analysis” considering “whether these four years of understanding have been worth it”, and “I think the conclusion will be the same”. That is why she has demanded that Junts make a “rational decision”.
Along with doubts about the pact, those related to the presidency of the entity are growing. The mayoress of L’Hospitalet and vice-president of the PSC, Núria Marín, has presided over the Provincial Council for the last four years, but now a new name has emerged among the socialist ranks that could relieve her as head, the mayoress of Sant Boi, Lluïsa Moret.
In the party they do not release a pledge, but Moret, unlike Marín, revalidated the absolute majority in his municipality and has grown internally in the PSC. Elected deputy secretary of organization by Illa in the congress that exalted the first secretary of the party, Ella Moret is precisely the campaign manager of the socialists against 23-J. She is a psychologist by profession, specialized in the fields of social welfare and gender equality, she has been mayor since 2014 and the first vice-president of the Barcelona Provincial Council, where until now she directed the area of ??equality and social sustainability.
