The elections last Sunday were not favorable for Ernest Maragall’s ERC. He came from sweep four years ago as the most voted party in the Catalan capital and the winner in 439 census sections, compared to the 286 that Barcelona en Comú reaped as second force. this 2023 the map of census sections has lost the yellow color and it is distributed almost entirely by the ‘Comuns’, the PSC and the Junts of Xavier Trias.
In many ballot boxes, the Junts ballots have clearly replaced those of the ERC, showing a communicating vessel between the two pro-independence parties, which already occurred in 2019 but in the opposite direction. There is only one core left in the entire city that has evaded Trias and remained loyal to the Republicans. As if they embodied the mythical introduction of the Asterix comics: “All of Gaul is occupied by the Romans… All? No! A village populated by irreducible Gauls resists, still and as always, the invader & rdquor ;.
Is about two census sections in the heart of Barceloneta, the seaside neighborhood of Barcelona. They are the only two in which ERC is the most voted party, with a 21% and 22% of the vote respectively. In one of them, however, Trias was on the heels of Maragall with 19.6%. In the other it is fourth: PSC, ‘Comuns’ and Trias are around 17%. Four years ago, Maragall garnered more than 40% of the votes here.
What’s on these streets?
The two census tracts bring together voters residing in a dozen streets between the Paseo Joan de Borbó (the one facing Port Vell) and the Poeta Boscà square, where the market is and still nicknamed ‘la Repla’. Right in the center is the Barceloneta square, with the church of Sant Miquel del Port and its emblematic lamppost fountain. If it was an old neighborhood, this would be it. old town of Barceloneta.
The area is roughly equivalent to two blocks from the Eixample but includes 10 streets wide and 5 long: they are narrow alleys such as Sant Miquel, del Mar or Baluard in the neuralgic point of the ‘rooms from home’, the tiny walk-up homes that characterize this neighborhood. A corner of Barcelona also popular outside the neighborhood for historical business such as the Baluard bakery or the La Cova Fumada bar.
The 2 of the PP, under suspicion
The map of results by census sections includes, in addition to these two republican islands, 409 for Junts, 358 for the PSC, 297 for the ‘Comuns’ and 2 for the PP. No other formation has led a census section. The curiosity of Barceloneta has its other side of the coin in the 2 sections led by the PP, located in two different districts. Nevertheless, one of them presents unusual data that could correct Friday’s final vote count.
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The first is already well known and is not surprising. The PP is again leader (31.8%) in a block of Sant Martí de Provençals near the La Verneda police station of the National Police. In it stands a building where many agents of this equipment live, some of them from outside Catalonia. This would explain an electoral behavior closer to the general voting dynamics in Spain than to the circumstances of Barcelona.
The second census tract is another matter entirely. It is a portion of the Bon Pastor industrial estate, between La Maquinista and Santa Coloma de Gramenet. A traditionally left-wing area where the PP has never had deep roots: in 2019 it obtained 4.75% of the vote. as revealed Digital was born this Tuesday, almost all the votes for the popular come from one of the three tables of this census section, which makes us suspect a human or computer error by attributing figures to each political acronym. It will undoubtedly be one of the focuses –among many others– of the official count that will settle the battle between PSC and Bcomú for second place, decisive for the investiture negotiations.