Junts and BComú have less and less hope every day that Mayor Jaume Collboni will agree to share the government of Barcelona City Council. So in this Friday’s plenary session the councilors of the groups of former mayors Xavier Trias and Ada Colau united their disappointments to reproach Mayor Collboni and underline the loneliness, weakness and lack of desire for dialogue of his executive supported by barely a dozen councilors. Only those from the PSC voted against, and those from ERC, PP and Vox abstained.
This is the second disapproval that this municipal government has suffered in just four months. Failures do not carry any legal obligation. They have an eminently symbolic character. But they illustrate the relationships between the groups very well. The difference with respect to the one processed at the end of the year is that, although then the groups were trying to pressure the socialists to sign an agreement once and for all that would allow them to enter the government, on this occasion the spirit of the leaders of the opposition is much more bellicose, this time the disapproval has overtones of revenge and counterattack.
Because both Trias and Colau are deeply disappointed with Collboni’s actions. They both got tired of so many meetings that led to nothing. They no longer expect the socialist to give them any mayoral tenure. The music stopped playing and there is no free chair. The two realized that the mayor moves like a duck in the minority, that it does not seem so unusual to govern with only ten councilors, that he is willing to resort to variable geometry and specific pacts, sometimes with some and in others with others, as it suits you.
Because the mayor is aware that the opposition cannot articulate any alternative, that the only thing the rest of the councilors have in common is their disappointment. He is so clear about it that his pulse did not tremble at all when it came to resorting to a question of trust to carry out his municipal budget proposal. Even those from the PP show more and more regret every day for having facilitated his inauguration. Likewise, on day 2, except for a big surprise, Collboni will see his accounts approved and he will score a goal.
Trias is determined to abandon municipal political life with a resounding slam of the door; in fact, in recent weeks he has already added quite a few. Hence, it was those from Junts who put this disapproval on the table. “This proposition – he told Mayor Collboni – only wants to confirm that you are incapable of building any majority. He already showed us this in the preparation of budgets, fiscal ordinances, and the Municipal Action Plan. And Barcelona needs a strong government. “You cannot continue to bury your head in the sand.”
Then, as Colau is involved in the Freedom Flotilla, the spokesperson for the commons, Janet Sanz, took the floor. “Citizens want and Barcelona needs a strong, stable and progressive government that can withstand attacks from the right. And you are doing nothing other than living off the income from previous mandates. And on top of that he doesn’t talk.”
And in this challenge, despite the Catalan electoral context, Mayor Collboni found the complicity of the Republicans, with whom he has gotten along better lately. Jordi Coronas reproached Junts and BComú for what he described as a tantrum, and on top of that he told them that another way of doing opposition and politics is to make proposals.
Finally Collboni himself spoke a few words. “This government makes decisions every day, and also makes proposals.” And he stressed that the one who cannot form any majority is precisely the opposition.
