The PSC and the mayor Jordi Ballart, leader of the Tot per Terrassa (TxT) formation, have reached an agreement whereby the only local deputy of this party in the Barcelona Provincial Council will support the investiture of the socialist Lluïsa Moret to preside over the entity. In this way, Salvador Illa’s party practically ensures control of the supra-municipal institution and will have a presence in three of the four provincial corporations.
The formation of the first mayor of Terrassa has signed this Wednesday the agreement with the PSC according to which they will lend their vote to the entente that already exists between the socialists and En Comú Podem, thus raising the majority to 23 deputies of the 51 that make up the plenary supramunicipal. This sum would tie with the 23 deputies of Junts and ERC, although these formations have not even reached an alternative agreement. In addition, the Socialists will have at least two independent deputies attached to Junts, who have already expressed to those of Salvador Illa their intention to invest Moret. They are Marc Castells, mayor of Igualada, and Sergi Vallès, mayor of Torrelles de Foix.
The constitution and investiture plenary session of the Provincial Council is held this Thursday morning and the rules say that in a first vote an absolute majority is required for the investiture but in a second a simple majority is enough. In addition, in the event of a tie – a possible option if the post-convergent group did not have leaks and the blocks of 23 PSC, common and TxT deputies were measured against that of ERC and Junts – the list with the most votes would win, in this case, the socialist .
But the Socialist victory in the second vote will be more bulky if they keep, as expected, the votes of the two deputies attached to Junts, Castells and Vallès. In this way, without counting on the votes of PP and Vox, Moret could be invested with 25 votes while ERC and Junts would see their sum reduced to 21 votes.
For their part, the popular ones did not want to repeat the formula that allowed Jaume Collboni to take over the mayoralty of Barcelona, ??for this reason they also established contacts with the PSC without fruition and even with Junts, although the authorized spokesmen for the post-convergent formation deny that end.
Ballart’s announcement about the agreement with the PSC represents a “turn”, according to socialist sources, with respect to what happened in the last few hours, in which relations between the mayor of Terrassa and those of Illa had cooled considerably. The Egarense mayor received an offer from Junts to preside over the entity in exchange for lending his only vote to the pro-independence majority, but he would have rejected the offer, which also had the serious reluctance of ERC because it implied having to also count on the PP for active or passive. The Republicans, who have a presence in the entities of Lleida, Tarragona and Girona, have watched the negotiation from the sidelines, aware of the complexity of the equation.
Ballart, who had been negotiating with the Socialists for days regarding an agreement with concrete measures, investments, that he demands for his municipality –a new Institut del Teatre, improving roads, works and sports facilities– would have reached an agreement in this area without in exchange, their training is integrated into the governing body of the council. The agreement between both parties is expected to be signed this morning, shortly.
As both formations have reported, the agreement is closed to “guarantee the governability of the Provincial Council” and they clarify that it does not imply the entry of the Ballart formation into the government of the entity.
The pact includes investments by the Provincial Council in Terrassa, as well as the creation of a collaboration framework between the provincial government and the Terrassa city council. In addition, the agreement includes favoring “the implementation of transformation projects and programs for the city”. according to its political program in matters of political positioning”.
The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, met this Wednesday morning with the twelve deputies of his formation in the Barcelona Provincial Council, although two will stand out from the group.
In the formation there is a certain discomfort due to the result of the negotiations that Turull and the municipal political secretary, David Saldoni, have conducted, due to the loss of institutional power of the party. However, this circumstance has occurred after the party, which had agreements with the Socialists on track in some town halls and in the councils of Lleida, Tarragona and Barcelona, ??changed its strategy to try to seal pacts with independentistas. Jaume Collboni’s maneuver in the Barcelona City Council to deprive Xavier Trias of the mayoralty at the last moment did the rest.
