Núria Marín will leave the mayorship of the Hospitalet de Llobregat City Council, which she has held since 2008, on June 15, as La Vanguardia was able to confirm yesterday. On that day, the handover will be held at the head of the City Council of Catalonia’s second city. The fellow socialist David Quirós will be his replacement, confirmed sources close to the PSC.
Marín, who has accumulated a great deal of experience in the field of local politics, also in the presidency of the Diputació de Barcelona, ??takes over with a less worn-out profile, councilor of the City Council since 2016. Currently, Quirós is lieutenant of Mayor of the People Services area with competences in innovation, education, culture, sports and the elderly. He had been increasing his public exposure as a councilor for months.
Born in 1974 in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Quirós holds a diploma in Labor Relations from the University of Barcelona and a master’s degree in Public Management from the Ramon Llull University. With a dialogical disposition and defender of culture as a driver of change, for some time he was in every way to replace Marín. He was getting ready.
His party, the PSC, does not have an absolute majority in the municipal council, so he will have to look for support to govern. Precisely, with this change they hope to iron out the differences with some opposition groups. The ideological distance between the different opposition forces (ERC, PP, commons and Vox) makes it almost impossible for an alternative candidate to emerge.
The political leadership of one of the greatest exponents of the municipal power of the PSC in Catalonia is therefore over. Marín saw them in all colors at the head of the mayor’s office. From the economic crisis caused by the bursting of the real estate bubble to the covid pandemic, two circumstances that particularly affected humble people, such as the residents of l’Hospitalet. A native and resident of the Torrassa district, she almost always showed solid leadership at the head of the PSC de l’Hospitalet and the City Council.
Affectionate as well as temperamental, she stood out more in short distances than in big speeches. He has always been left-handed. He was both able to seduce executives such as the head of the Mobile World Congress, John Hoffman, so that the great congress would continue in Barcelona and to start dancing or whatever in a group of neighbors if the occasion required it.
He has always exhibited a strong personality. The presidents of the Generalitat, councilors and ministers who have passed through l’Hospitalet over the years know this well. He made some of them go up to the dome of the Hesperia Tower hotel to make them understand from a bird’s eye view what was necessary for l’Hospitalet. A fighter by nature, she never stopped being vindictive with the higher administrations. Sometimes he achieved his goals, and sometimes not. In this sense, he will leave the mayor’s office without the work of burying the train tracks, a momentous work that has been promised a thousand times, having begun.
The members of the National Police who were in l’Hospitalet on October 1, 2017 also got to know his strong personality. He never collaborated with the independence referendum. However, when he saw the police charges at the Can Vilumara high school, he took to the streets to literally drive out the city’s law enforcement. “Marxeu de l’Hospitalet”, he told them. She was number 2 in the PSC at the time.
The truth is that the socialist was not going through the best of times in L’Hospitalet. After achieving it, in the last municipal elections he lost the absolute majority. It was his turn to rule alone. She did not repeat as president of the Provincial Council and was elected senator. The last legislature was tough for her. Strategic projects, such as the transformation of the Granvia, were delayed while the pandemic affected the city intensely. On top of that, during the last few years as mayor, three councilors from her team were embroiled in two different alleged corruption cases. She was not directly involved in any, but in the case of the most famous one, that of the Sports Council, she came to be imputed until the justice exonerated her of any crime. They were politically and personally difficult months.
