The elections of the next May 28 They will not only serve to decide the mayor of each municipality. They will also mark the trend just half a year after the generals. In Barcelonaup to four parties will fight for the same bag of votes on the flank of the constitutionalist right. PP, Citizens, vox and valentines They will be measured at the polls and the map that comes out that same night will mark their future. Especially, the one of cs and the one of valentineswhich -directly- risk their continuity, while the PSC more and more of these parties stand out, as revealed by the state of the polls.
Of the four formations that compete, the ones that come out best in the polls are the popular ones, with Daniel Sirera in front. They are the only ones who would have their entrance to the consistory guaranteed. The rest could be below 5%, the minimum set to get representation. According to the average of polls recently published by this newspaper, the PP would be around 6.8% and Vox would knock on the doors of Sant Jaume with 4.7%. Cs, on the other hand, wanted to be away (2.7%) -although some recent surveys give them better prospects- and Valents would also be a long way from getting a councilor.
With these data, the popular ones are clear that their campaign will be based on constant calls to the useful vote. “If those who vote for Vox, Cs and Valents are aware that their vote will not obtain representation and they vote for the PP as the only non-independence center and center-right force that can enter the City Council, we tie in number of councilors with Ada Colau, Xavier Trias and Jaume Collboni and we beat ERC,” Sirera said in statements in EL PERIÓDICO.
What the mayor of the PP proposes is currently a utopia due to the fragmentation into four of the same bag of voters, but his approach happens to be the only one of the four applications that exceeds the threshold of 5% the next 28-M, so that four years from now it has been able to take over all -or the vast majority- of this political space.
For the moment, Sirera has articulated a list that seeks to unite the party -touched internally after years of electoral hardships and media bets outside the ranks-, and with nods to moderate Catalanism -with the recovery of Santi Fisas, now president of the Democràtia league-.
In the opinion of the polls, only Vox can twist Sirera’s plans. After three attempts -in 2015 and in 2019-, the polls give the extreme right a real chance of entering the Barcelona City Council for the first time. The formation has little municipal implementation, but will try to pull the brand. the mayor Gonzalo de Oro-Pulido It will seek to collect the votes that the ultras obtained in the 2021 Parliament elections, when they approached 45,000 votes, 7% of all those cast in the Catalan capital.
But for whom the May elections are decisive is for cs, which seeks to save the furniture at any cost and avoid disappearing from the political map. Party sources consulted by this newspaper acknowledge that the division will take its toll on May 28, but they assure that they are not “afraid” that citizens have different options to choose from and believe that this fragmentation is only “fought by being the best option”.
To reverse the trend, the formation has chosen to put its most media and ‘warrior’ profile as a candidate, that of Anna Grau, who will seek to sing during the campaign so as not to go unnoticed. For now, it has already begun with the weekly demonstrations against the squatters in the El Kubo-La Ruina building.
But, beyond the polls, the race to form lists has not boded well for Cs either, which will end up appearing in less than half of the Catalan municipalities than four years ago. In addition, he has had to give up having party ballots in important enclaves such as Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Ripollet or Molins de Rei, and up to 12 region capitals -including Igualada, Vic, Mollerussa or Amposta-. In some of the cases, due to the PP’s takeover bid to its candidate.
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Who is waiting for this debacle of the oranges is valentinesthe formation founded by Eva Parera. His flirtations with the PP -with whom he contested the 2021 Parliamentary elections- and with Cs -with whom he shared the list led by Manel Valls– led her to propose a single list of ‘constitutionalists’ for the municipal elections, which was unsuccessful. Now, as explained by number two of her, Albert Guivernau, to EL PERIÓDICO, the intention is to seek the orange vote that in 2021 “stayed at home”. They calculate that in Barcelona it could be “about 100,000 votes.”
However, in those elections, who benefited the most from the orange debacle was the PSC. In 2017, then with Ines Arrimadas in front, they managed to win in the most populated cities -Barcelona, L’Hospitalet, Badalona, Terrassa, Sabadell, Lleida or Tarragona-, while in 2021 the socialists won in all of them, recovering the traditional ‘red belt’. Now Jaume Collboni also hopes to benefit from it and capture part of the useful vote of constitutionalism. At the moment the polls place him within the pools, competing with Trias and Colau.