While Xavier Trias and Ernest Maragall discreetly close the pact that will ensure the investiture of the mayor of Junts, Jaume Collboni refuses to throw in the towel. The negotiations between Junts and ERC have been going on for days and sources from both formations admitted last night that the pact could be closed in the next few hours. Just need to close some details. The investiture plenary starts tomorrow at five in the afternoon and before that the two parties will have to submit the agreement to the consultation of their bases.
While some have just outlined the conditions and balances of the new municipal government, with which Trias would secure a more comfortable majority of 15 councilors instead of a solo government with ten, Collboni insists. With 48 hours left for the investiture session, the socialist mayor yesterday asked in the most direct and clear way possible for the votes of the nine BComú councilors to be mayor: “I will form a government with the communes and I will follow the best tradition of the socialist mayors since Pasqual Maragall; the common people must act in conscience”, he insisted. What the socialist mayor, who has been partying with the PP for days, did not reveal is who will provide the two votes necessary for PSC and BComú to add an absolute majority and therefore avoid the investiture of the mayor with the most votes, Xavier Trias .
The two essential votes for socialists and communes to add the necessary 21 councilors will be difficult for them to come from the PP considering that yesterday the mayor, Daniel Sirera, ruled out investing Collboni if ??Ada Colau and the communes form part of the future government. “We spent the campaign saying that Ada Colau must leave; and it’s not just about her, it’s about the policies of the commons, we ask that they not govern, that’s what we ask”, said Sirera.
Despite this, Collboni took it for granted that with the vote of the commons he will be able to be mayor and form a government. “Barcelona has voted for change and has voted for progress”, insisted the socialist, and reiterated that “the commons must be up to the task, as we were there in 2015 and 2019”.
Accompanied and applauded by councillors, officials and members of the party’s management and groups, Collboni repeated with conviction that “if the commons support my investiture, I will be mayor. We have the votes and, in these moments of uncertainty and confusion, the citizens of Barcelona must know that I will form a government of progress, open, dialogic and with a bright future”, he assured. “We have to be honest, two days before the municipal plenary there are only two options, a Junts mayor in the minority or a socialist party mayor with the ability to move forward and not back down.”
If Collboni believed that the viability of his proposal was certain – despite Sirera’s words -, Jordi Martí (BComú) was even more certain of the unviability of the scenario. Martí responded in the most forceful way: “We will not make any kind of agreement that involves the PP; and every day that the PP signs a new agreement with Vox takes us further away from the pact; in no case what happens tomorrow will have nothing to do with the popular people”, he concluded.
Martí was surprised by Collboni’s insistence and reiterated that, in addition to the “abysmal” distance that separates them from the people, “the statements made by the leaders give us even more reasons; they say they will vote for any government that dismantles the legacy left by the commons and we will not vote for Collboni to dismantle what we have done either,” Martí concluded.
The socialist mayor assured that “it is up to me to live up to the democratic mandate. Barcelona has voted for change, it has voted for progress and it has voted to open a new stage with a new mayor who will lead the majority of progress”. Although he acknowledged that “a government with commons was possible if ERC had wanted to support it from the start, but very soon, too soon, the leader of ERC distanced himself from it and now the most credible option is an independence front “, he said. On the other hand, Martí regretted that Collboni did not want to negotiate with this leftist government. “We continue with an outstretched hand until the plenary is held, we have put all the possibilities on the table with the utmost generosity, but we have not been able to negotiate because Collboni has repeatedly refused, we have insisted and he has said no”.
