Barcelona close a stage with the result of these municipal elections 2023. A very close campaign and a heart-stopping night have put end of eight years as mayor of Ada Colau in the Catalan capital. Xavier Trias has achieved the victory by the minimum and the PSC is done with the second place, which leaves the current mayoress in a bitter third position. Especially bitter because she only lacked a hundred votes for the silver medal, which would open many more doors for her as she already demonstrated four years ago when she won ERC.
Arithmetic admits a eventual leftist alliance against the winner, as the Socialists have made clear, but it is very unlikely – if not impossible – that Ada Colau will lead it from third place on the podium. Jaume Collboni has made it very clear that the PSC “does not give up anything& rdquor; and at the same time he has insisted on “the opportunity and duty to open a new stage & rdquor ;. Election night opens now three weeks of intense negotiations, with its corresponding red lines, conditional agreements, marketing of charges and the occasional stab. But however the talks end, what is already clear is that the investiture of the new consistory opens another chapter in Barcelona politics.
Trias or Collboni
Xavier Trias sees himself as mayor, even if he is in a minority, but for this he needs to pave the way for his own investiture. Perhaps for this reason he has been ahead of the rest of the mayors and has been the first to come out to make statements about the results, which have not been completely clear until the end of the scrutiny. Haste has allowed the mayor of Junts to show his cards quickly: promise outstretched hand to the opposition to, precisely, deactivate the temptation of pacts that could prevent it from recovering the rod lost in 2015.
Trias mainly seeks the support of Jaume Collboni’s PSC to articulate a majority for the first time in Barcelona sociovergent of 21 councilors. An alliance for which Collboni has made it clear in his statements that he does not have a great predisposition. The game board is also Catalan, with a PSC that comes out of the elections strong and that plays hard in Parliament. The socialist leader has repeated in the campaign that he would not inaugurate Xavier Trias or Ada Colau, a story that he can now maintain in two ways: whether Trias were to be invested automatically as Junts is the most voted formation, or if he gets for himself himself the mayor’s rod through progressive support.
One way or the other, there will be no shortage of pressure in the coming days for Barcelona to achieve a stable government. Who can look more uncomfortable in this scenario is CKDwhich has dropped to fourth position with 5 councilors four years after winning the capital. You will have to choose between Xavier Trias and Jaume Collboni, two rivals with whom Ernest Maragall has very little harmony. At the moment Ernest Maragall has underlined Trias’ victory this Sunday: “It is he who is responsible for the initiative to try to lead the construction of a strong government & rdquor ;. What’s more, he added that the Republicans “put themselves at the disposal of the city & rdquor ;.
Ada Colau has taken a long time to come to the fore and has waited to clarify if she was really third or could achieve second place in extremis. An uncertainty that has been maintained even with 99.9% scrutinized. But with a good face and forcefulness, she has also opted for “progressive governments & rdquor ;.
Stage change on the right
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The constitutionalist rights also turn the page to a political stage in the consistory, and perhaps beyond. The PP has been able to double representatives in Barcelona led by Daniel Sirera and supported by a very favorable electoral day for the popular in Spain. He gets rid of two current rivals in the plenary, Ciutadans and Valents, who are outside the Catalan capital.
However, the PP has found an adversary to its right, VOX, which has exceeded the minimum threshold of 5% of the vote cast. partly thanks to a drop in participation of 5.63%, enters the Barcelona City Council for the first time. The brand has carved a niche for itself despite presenting a little-known mayor, Gonzalo de Oro, in a campaign punctuated by protests against two squatted houses in Bonanova and the provocative actions of the Desokupa company.