Together for Catalonia has commissioned a poll with which you want to calibrate the effect you would have Xavier Triasformer mayor of Barcelona, will lead the list that the party will present in the Catalan capital in the municipal elections that will be held on May 28, 2023.
The survey, which is being prepared these days, incorporates Trias as one of Junts’ options, among which are other names such as that of the deputy in Parliament Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas and that of the current ‘conseller’ of Health, Josep Maria Argimón.
This is the party’s second poll in a relatively short period of time. In the previous one, still without the figure of the former mayor, the data predicted very positive results for the group, Junts sources maintain. According to the opinion of those surveyed, the party would recover many of the votes it lost in 2019, when it fell from 10 to 5 councillors.
Laura Borràs publicly supports his running again: “It’s not that I like him as a candidate, it’s that I like him as mayor”
illusion scenarios
Despite the fact that recent times have not been very propitious for the post-convergents, the May 2023 appointment has made them recover their illusion. And in part this is so because they have some possible scenarios on the horizon that could bring them satisfaction, to a lesser or greater extent. The main challenge, which is to win the elections and regain the mayor’s office, seems complicated, except for unprecedented alliances such as a pact with the PSC. An option that years ago would seem unfeasible and now does not seem so remote: both parties share an agreement in the Barcelona Provincial Council. Nor does it seem so far-fetched to take advantage of a debate focused on the confrontation between Trias and Ada Colauwhich allows Junts to recover some of the five councilors lost in the last elections.
The third option may be especially appetizing in the context of current Catalan politics: Junts per Catalunya could prevent, if their numbers improve, that the ERC candidate, Ernest Maragall be the next mayor of the city. Removing a couple of councilors could be enough to leave him with the control rod and thus achieve a relevant loot in the hard open fight between the two parties that led the ‘procés’.
The trias option
In the life of the consistory, until relatively recently, no credit was given to the possibility that Trias would return to the ring and face Colau again at the polls, 8 years after the then candidate for Barcelona en Comú unexpectedly unhorsed him from the mayor’s office by only one councilman and 17,000 votes difference.
The resignation of Elsa Artadi, who threw in the towel and left politics and the city council last May, opened the door to uncertainty. Junts was facing a difficult moment, with a practically irrelevant role in the current mandate, because the life of the municipal opposition is very lackluster unless their votes are decisive. And theirs are not in this mandate.
Although he initially explicitly rejected the possibility of becoming mayor again, Trias ended up being open to not ruling out that option. He has set conditions: he wants a united party that comes out to win and advocates maintaining the pact between ERC and Junts in the Catalan government. He asks for pragmatism and order. And he has specified that he will not show up if he sees that it is going to crash. He said it this week: “I will only present myself if I have a chance to win”.
Wrapped up in the Diada and endorsed by Borràs
The desire for revenge is not lacking: the bad taste in his mouth that was left in 2015 is an engine. A bitter memory fueled in large part by the anger that he and those who support him maintain for considering that Colau took advantage of false accusations of corruption to defeat him. Trias does not forget that he was left without a second term.
Trias also has the encouragement of the street, at least that of the Diada demonstration: they say that during the time he was in the march he received a small shower of pro-independence support, which always helps to make a decision like the one waiting for him. On a more official front, this Monday he received the public support of Laura Borrás. The president of Junts has declared to the 2: “It’s not that I like him as a candidate, it’s that I like him as mayor.” Borràs has also underlined that the then mayor was removed from office with bad art, alluding to the false accusations cited.
Artadi’s goodbye
Junts is stuck with the thorn of that painful defeat: for the first time, Convergència i Unió had managed to govern Barcelona in 2011. An impossible company for 30 years. And losing the square as he lost it was shocking. In that 2015 campaign, some of the members of the candidacy (which still bore the CiU acronym) later admitted, those from Trias thought that the rival was the socialist Jaume Collboni. A big mistake.
Artadi’s departure reinforced the feeling of abandonment, of the risk that the disaster would be greater, that the representation of Junts would be condemned to three or four councillors. And the option of Trias returning to the electoral arena has the opposite emotional effect.
Argimon’s card
However, if the former mayor decides not to show up, Junts has other cards up his sleeve. One would be that of Cuevillas, although everything indicates that the lawyer today has fewer options than the Minister of Health, Joseph Maria Argimon. It is a figure that is associated with the final part of the management of the pandemic. He treasures a certain charisma and they say that he has a resounding encouragement to decide to take the step into the municipal world: leave Salut before possible cuts are made due to the economic situation in the fall.
Related news
The name of Argimon sounds strong to integrate the Junts group in Barcelona in the 2023-2027 mandate. If Trias is top of the list, he would be number threewith Neus Munte second on the list. If Trias doesn’t show up, Argimon would aim for first place.
Munté, current president of the group, relieved Artadi after his departure from the town hall. She is in all the pools to appear in the candidacy and she has shown enough fidelity to the project to be rewarded with another mandate. Even if it is only for complying with discipline and elegance the loss of the position of mayor that he had won in the Barcelona primaries of the PDECat, then the successor brand of Convergència, he ended up giving the position to Joaquim Forn as symbolic candidate and Artadi as actual mayor.