The PSC will win the Provincial Council of Barcelona on Thursday at the investiture session, which, in all probability, will elect the mayor of Sant Boi de Llobregat, Lluïsa Moret, as president. And it will be so thanks to the pacts of the socialists with En Comú Podem, with the local formation Tot per Terrassa (TxT), led by the mayor Jordi Ballart, and, predictably, with two independent deputies attached to JxCat, the mayor of Igualada , Marc Castells, and that of Torrelles de Foix, Sergi Vallès.
The arithmetic that will enable the Socialists to preside over the supra-municipal body was confirmed on Wednesday. In the morning, Moret, who has led the negotiations at the PSC to lead the institution, and Ballart signed the “governability agreement” by which the only deputy of the local party, Maria Mercè Balcells, will support the socialist without integrating to the supra-municipal government. In the afternoon, it was expected that the two mayors who ran in the May elections in coalition with JxCat would confirm that they would also vote to invest Moret. They didn’t, but the socialists count.
The three supports would join the deputies already available to the PSC (17) and the commons (five), with which they add up to 25 deputies out of the 51 that make up the plenum and would, in this way, exceed the 21 that the pro-independence front (Junts and ERC), which have not even managed to reach an agreement between them. Despite the fact that the block led by the Socialists does not reach the absolute majority, set at 26 deputies, it would be enough to prevail in the second vote, where only a simple majority is required.
In this way, one of the most tense negotiations ends as a result of the results of the 28-M elections in Catalonia, in addition to the Barcelona mayoralty, which, in fact, has been the trigger for everything. The election of Jaume Collboni as mayor of the Catalan capital was decisive for Junts to refuse to reissue the agreement it had until now with the PSC in the Provincial Council and to try to opt for “other majorities”. Salvador Illa’s party always showed a predilection for maintaining the agreement with Junts, and even waited for a rectification of the post-convergents that never came. This made the PSC open the game.
The Socialists explored the possibility of having the support of Junts deputies in the body, knowing, as they claim, that a good part of the 12 representatives in the Provincial Council were in favor of re-editing the agreement with the PSC. The members most likely to break the post-convergent voting discipline were Castells and Vallès, who lead the local formations: Junts per Igualada and Impulsem Penedès. Since La Vanguardia uncovered the talks, the two mayors have maintained a deafening silence that would reinforce that the understanding with the PSC is a sincere option.
With the same strategy, the PSC simultaneously started talks with Ballart, who also allowed himself to be loved by Junts in the attempt to wrest control of the Provincial Council from the Socialists. Despite the fact that Illa’s party and the mayor of Terrassa have had notable differences – Ballart tore up the PSC’s card in the middle of the process – and that the latter governs Terrassa with ERC and Junts, on Wednesday he ended up opting for Moret in favor of an agreement that will entail “the implementation of transformation projects and programs for the city”.
Everything for Terrassa will not be in the Government of the Provincial Council, on the other hand, the communes will be integrated, with one of the vice-presidencies for the former mayoress of Castelldefels, Candela López.
In Junts, there are not a few local cadres who express concern about the management of the management of the electoral results of 28-M and the small quotas of power achieved. The management also admits dissonance with some of its mayors regarding the decision not to agree again with the PSC.
Junts’ organizing secretary, Jordi Turull, explained on Wednesday the reasons for not giving in to the socialists: “After the State operation in Barcelona City Council, we could not embrace the PSC as if nothing had happened ”, and, for this reason, he tried to agglutinate a majority with ERC and TxT that would wrest the Provincial Council from the PSC. Despite this, he admitted that with Castells and Vallès “we were going to one if the alternative was viable”, and therefore acknowledged the probability that today they will end up voting for Moret. But the danger, as in Barcelona, ??was that the PP, “the wild card of PSC”, he called it, would align itself with the socialists again.
The fact of not having “guarantees” that the PP would not vote for the PSC again, as the Republicans, Ballart and the independents claimed, meant that they finally “went on the safe side”, apologize post-convergence sources, who acknowledge that they have polled the PP Catalan to find out their intentions, but “in no case to negotiate an agreement”, they clarify.
With the control of the Provincial Council of Barcelona, ??the PSC further strengthens municipal hegemony in Catalonia after the elections in May. The mayors of Barcelona, ??Lleida and Tarragona are joined by the strengthened dominance in the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona and the presence in two other provincial corporations, that of Tarragona and Lleida, thanks to the agreements with ERC. Together, on the other hand, it loses the last great stronghold of power after leaving the Government.
