An operation similar to the one that led Ada Colau to seize the Barcelona mayor’s office from the winner of the 2019 elections, but with the roles of some of the protagonists of that maneuver reversed and new stellar appearances. The socialist Jaume Collboni as mayor instead of Ada Colau; BComú as junior partner of the government coalition instead of the PSC; and a couple of PP councilors exercising the functions that Manuel Valls and two other Barcelona pel Canvi assumed four years ago. And now, as in 2019, with the same pretext: to prevent the capital of Catalonia from falling into pro-independence hands.
The bizarre plan summarized in the previous lines is the one that the Socialists have begun to concoct after verifying at the first exchange the little, if not zero, predisposition of a badly injured ERC to give the Barcelona mayor’s office to the PSC, even if the operation entailed an exchange in other institutions.
Jaume Collboni’s plan B, which the Socialists transferred yesterday to the popular ones -they only acknowledged receipt- is not without difficulties. The most important, the very condition and circumstances of the guest at this alternative party, the Popular Party.
The call for general elections announced on Monday by President Pedro Sánchez complicates, at least on paper and in good logic, the aspiration of the Socialists to reconquer the mayoralty from which they were banished twelve years ago.
Unlike four years ago, when Manuel Valls took action, the independence process is not going through a moment of maximum effervescence, although precisely the results of 28-M and the sudden call for generals have shaken consciences and interests in the ranks of pro-sovereignties and led to a threat of rapprochement between Junts and ERC that may not have much of a way, but in the case of Barcelona makes Maragall’s contribution to the mayor Collboni campaign a little less viable.
Of course, in their eagerness to achieve the objective they have set, the Socialists will argue that the problem for Barcelona would not be so much Trias as the team that surrounds it. The former mayor has always, and also during a campaign in which he has hidden the acronym of Junts, shown plenty of pragmatism and moderation, but thinking of a future replacement in the municipal group, there are plenty of councilors with strong beliefs and pro-independence attitudes. And that is a card that the PSC is willing to use in the negotiation, as well as the one that the Junts leadership has given it when proposing a unitary list of the independence movement.
The fact that the generals are going to be held only 36 days after the constitution of the town councils works against a formula that marries socialists, common and popular. For the PP, giving away the mayoralty of Barcelona to the Socialists does not seem like the best possible deal so few dates after a life-or-death duel between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
“To the enemy, no water,” some sources consulted point out, although others, even of the same political persuasion, warn that the formula in which the combination of the 10 PSC councilors plus the 9 from BComú plus two of the four PP councilors would add the 21 votes that Collboni needs.
Another factor to consider is to what extent Sirera would be willing to enter a game in which Colau participates and to what extent the commoners, who insist over and over again, by land, sea and Twitter, on the existence of a progressive majority in Barcelona (with PSC and ERC), they would be willing to repeat the history of 2019 and accept the support of the right, and this time with the aggravating circumstance that the biggest beneficiaries would be the socialists.
BComú and the PSC are anxiously awaiting the final result of the scrutiny on Friday. A sorpasso of the commons (the difference is now 141 votes) would once again move all the pieces on the board.
Another effect of the call for elections is that, most likely, Ada Colau will not take the step of running for the elections on July 23 as part of the project of the vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda DÃaz. The mayoress expects new events in a few days in which they follow one another without time to digest them.
