Xavier Trias was the last to get on the boat of the municipal elections, although his name was heard in the gossip of the post-convergent space even before the resignation of Elsa Artadi – who had been the early riser candidate – just one year ago. After delaying his decision for months, in December he gave the final yes to Junts per Catalunya –with good forecasts in the bag– and the polls immediately rewarded him.
He has faced the campaign trying to minimize unforced errors and to continue in the front pack with proposals on economic recovery, cleanliness, security or the promise to stop Ada Colau’s policies. At some point it seemed that these two weeks were going to be long for the convergent ex-mayor, but he has gone from less to more and in recent days he has seemed more and more comfortable. “He has happened as in all campaigns, when it starts… it ends,” Trias said this Friday about it.
His intention has been to unite the “useful vote” against the current municipal government and has tried to turn the contest into a vis a vis with Colau, with the permission of Jaume Collboni -whom Trias has first named “tourist”, for to leave the City Council early, and later as an “altar boy”, for helping the mayoress and Pedro Sánchez-, who wanted to dispute the flag of the alternative.
Likewise, at times he has played the “restitution” card, after the state sewers a few months before the municipal ones in 2015 fabricated false information about him that linked him to corruption.
The risk they see in their candidacy is that Collboni and Colau add up and the effect of the undecided, which is why they have alerted day in and day out, this Friday one last time in an original and creative way, with a story format, to vote for the candidate socialist is to do it for the commons.
For Sunday’s event, Trias has brought together the different sensibilities of the post-convergent spectrum under the same banner, has modulated and moderated the discourse to be transversal and hopes to fish in traditional fishing grounds of that space, such as the Sarrià -Sant Gervasi district – “zero kilometer†of victory, in the words of his campaign manager, Jordi MartÖ, Les Corts or the Eixample. But it has also been a free verse, knowing that this is the last trip, that it will not be presented again. And that trick can also be played if he is elected mayor.
He promises that he will not make “strange pacts” to reach the mayoralty, an allusion to the maneuver of Colau and Collboni with Manuel Valls four years ago to deprive Ernest Maragall of the command rod. But in their candidacy they have been cautious and prudent when it comes to defining and specifying the red lines, and they have always said that although they will not agree with the PP, if they are given the votes they will not reject them… But their roadmap is another , stay first and then look for agreements. For that, Trias guarantees that he will have “free hands”.
In the final rally, in Jardinets de Grà cia, where Junts has gathered more than 700 people, Trias has been accompanied by his entire candidacy – including former councilors of the Generalitat such as Victòria Alsina, Damià Calvet, Ramon Tremosa and Neus Munté–, the former president Artur Mas, who already surrounded him in the initial act, the former councilors Jaume Giró and Josep Maria Argimon, the also former councilor and his close collaborator when he was mayor, Joaquim Forn, or the leader of Democrats of Catalonia, Toni Castellà , and some deputies of Parliament like Quim Jubert or Glòria Freixa. The president of the Union of Chinese Associations of Catalonia, Chuen Ping Lam, and the president of Puente China España, Liling Qi, have also attended, as well as the candidate’s family: wife, children and grandchildren.
Who was not present today was the management of JxCat. The general secretary, Jordi Turull, was at the closing of the campaign in Amer, the town of former president Carles Puigdemont, whom Trias has evoked in his last sentence of the campaign. “We will win for Puigdemont. Also”, he exclaimed. The president of the formation, Laura Borrà s, for her part, has finished the municipal career in Cerdanyola del Vallès.
While Trias was speaking, some teenagers burst onto the stage shouting “climate awareness” and dressed in black. The security services have immediately evicted them and the act has continued without further ado.
