The appeal to the useful vote of the non-independence center-right, Daniel Sirera’s mantra throughout the campaign, has taken effect and the PP has imposed itself with four councilors, two more than it had, over the other forces of its political spectrum, Ciudadanos and Valents, who after obtaining six mayors from the hand of Manuel Valls in 2019, this 2023 have been left out of the Barcelona City Council. All in all, the rise of the popular has not managed to stop the push of the extreme right and Vox bursts in with two councilors in the Consistory.
From the Avenida Palace hotel, where the popular ones have celebrated election night, the number two on the PP list, Juan Milián, has appeared shortly after the closing of the polling stations to assess the participation in elections that he has described as those of the “change”, pending the official results and at a time when the polls gave the PP between two and three seats. His goal is to continue growing, he said, hoping to be decisive. In the end, with the four councilors confirmed, Daniel Sirera has appeared, who has seen fulfilled the wish of doubling the representation obtained by Josep Bou four years ago.
Received with applause and while the usual tune of the PP played, Sirera began by thanking the support of the 80,000 Barcelonans who have trusted the PP. “We have done it, in the end we have done it”, said the popular candidate, who congratulated himself on the fact that the PP has returned to Barcelona “with force”. In Catalan, he has congratulated Xavier Trias, the winner of the elections, for his success.
“Only eight months ago the polls said that the PP was going to be left without representation in the City Council. And in just four months we have doubled that representation. The PP returns and returns with enthusiasm, with four councilors who are going to leave their skin to achieve change in Barcelona”, exclaimed Sirera. “We are the main force of constitutionalism in Barcelona,” she added, appealing to the voters of Ciudadanos and Valents, who have been left without representation and whom the PP aspires to represent.
“Ada Colau has lost the elections and that is good news for Barcelona. And Pedro Sánchez loses them in Spain and it is another great news”, concluded the PP candidate, who congratulated his colleague Xavier GarcÃa Albiol for the absolute majority obtained in Badalona. “We have stayed one ERC councilor, who is the one who governs the Generalitat. Starting tomorrow I will work to get the PP to govern one day in Catalonia as well”, Sirera finished by saying, and then he called the affiliates present at the hotel to join the party to the sound of the rumba.
The circumspect entrance of Anna Grau and Carlos Carrizosa at the Ciudadanos headquarters has foreshadowed that the night was not going to be a party for them, but the candidate wanted to overcome the foreseeable electoral failure by displaying a bottle of red wine that she carried in her bag . Although her desire would have been to toast the permanence of her party in the Barcelona City Council, this goal has been far beyond her reach.
The number three on the list, Marina Bravo, has appeared to assess the results and has lamented the low turnout, particularly among moderate voters, who “do not make noise,” said Bravo, and who are the ones who, from their point of view, view, fewer have mobilized in these elections. “No one escapes” what the polls first pointed out, she pointed out, and then they confirmed the results, although the deputy in Parliament has not made any more allusions to the bump and has wanted to be “prudent”.
