Xavier Trias vigorously shook up the long pre-campaign for the municipal elections on May 28 when, on December 12, he announced that he would run for these elections with the intention of regaining the mayorship of Barcelona, ​​which was taken from him by Ada Colau in 2015. A month later, the survey published by La Vanguardia, followed by many others with similar results, was the first to detect the landslide caused by the veteran convergent politician, who entered the battle of Barcelona as a bulldozer In the trio of favorites (Ada Colau, Ernest Maragall and Jaume Collboni), who practically since the leader of the commons achieved the second investiture, maintained a balanced pulse that did not decant to any side, an uncomfortable guest was added. Not for Colau, delighted with life with the fact of being able to polarize the electoral dispute with his predecessor in office, but yes for Collboni and, above all, for a Maragall who, according to polls and media and public perception , the irruption of Trias – and probably the wear and tear that governing Catalonia in a minority is causing ERC – left him with no options to repeat the result of four years ago.

Since this appearance on the scene of the mayor of Junts, who does not remind Junts of the process and the challenge to the current legality, of Carles Puigdemont and Laura Borràs (in fact, the party’s initials do not even appear in the Trias per Barcelona candidacy), the defender of Barcelona tired of the city model outlined by Colau, feels that this seismic movement has had no perceptible aftershocks.

In a context like this, the electoral campaign that will officially begin at 00:00 next Friday appears more decisive than ever and even more so if, as Carlos Castro indicates in the analysis on the following page, a few thousand of these many Barcelonians who are still undecided will not pluck the daisy until the moment of the meeting with the ballot boxes.

Barring a big surprise, the winner of the municipal elections in Barcelona – not necessarily the next mayor or mayoress – will be won by a minimal difference in votes. And given the prospect of maximum fragmentation between the big four, it wouldn’t be surprising if the 161,000 votes obtained by ERC four years ago or the 176,000 that marked Colau’s ceiling eight years ago would be enough to ensure be the first place on the podium on the night of May 28. Now that it has been 40 years since Pasqual Maragall’s first victory in the elections of May 8, 1983, how far are those 413,034 votes that gave him the victory, not the absolute majority, the mayor’s legacy of which, in a somewhat simplistic, simplistic and decontextualized way, even today some people are too stubborn to boast.

It is paradoxical that an election with such an uncertain result is preceded by a pre-campaign, and certainly a campaign, so predictable, with few plot twists, with almost all cards marked and the roles of each of the protagonists so well defined. Perhaps, taking into account what has happened in recent weeks, only some issues that fully or partially escape municipal competence (the drought, the ordeal of Rodalies, conflicting occupations) will make a hole in the political arena (or in the mud), where there will be no shortage of the classics of yesterday and today (the tram, public insecurity, the lack of housing, tourism management…) or the affairs that have taken place during the era Colau, like the superisles and their effects on mobility.

The result of Barcelona will not only be relevant for the future of a city that continues to be as much admired from outside as it is suffered by thousands of Barcelona residents, a city that is still capable of injecting itself with an intoxicating, and even a little unnecessary , overdose of self-esteem – placebo effect – because an idle trio of international VIPs choose it to treat themselves to a few days of celebration. Whatever the people of Barcelona decide three weeks from now, there will be many readings in Catalan and Spanish.

A Trias victory could mark a change of course in Junts and anticipate a revival of the old Convergence. ERC, stubborn for some time to dispute the metropolitan hegemony with the PSC, cannot afford a fiasco in the capital of Catalonia. The adventure of Yolanda Díaz will start with more or less provisions depending on the result of Ada Colau. For the PP, adding a couple more councilors to its small representation of two councilors in the Barcelona City Council would mean normalizing a little what is not at all normal for a party with aspirations to govern Spain again.

And for Pedro Sánchez, the fact of placing Jaume Collboni in the mayor’s office would be equivalent to applying an antidote to the defeat in many other Spanish capitals, including Madrid, and oxygen in the face of the generals. It is not surprising that the President of the Government has chosen Barcelona to close the campaign on May 26, something unusual in local elections and with a single precedent, starring Sánchez himself, in the 2019 general elections.