Xavier Trias asked for stability in Junts per Catalunya and within the coalition government that the party maintained with ERC as one of its 4 conditions to stand for the municipal elections in May in Barcelona, and this stability, which is not that it was very solid , has been blown up. And despite this, the former mayor has not thrown in the towel.
Quite the contrary: all those consulted believe that it will take a few days to digest the breakup of the Catalan Executive to finish confirming that it is presented. “We understand that it is a matter of days before he confirms that it will be presented & rdquor ;, he assures Jordi Marti Galbis, spokesperson for Junts at the Barcelona City Council. And he adds: “We have good polls that are very good.”
private visit
Junts maintains the support for him to head his list in the Catalan capital, with the aim of presenting a battle and the conviction that he will not be a troupe of the appointment, that he has options to govern. Meanwhile, Trias has not commented on his plans and is in London on a private visit with friends. Not that he can delay the announcement of what his plans are for very long. His rivals have been taking it for granted for weeks that he will appear, and in fact many expected him to announce it at La Mercè.
As for his supporters, a Trias candidacy is an option that is more than convenient in the context of the situation of Junts in the Barcelona City Council, where he has been inconsequential in the votes since the current mandate began, in 2019. The opposition he led Elsa Artadi had a hard profile in the speech, but his abandonment left him nothing. The electoral perspectives were then considerably negative.
No internal opposition
If Trias decided not to show up now, the unease situation would be considerable. What seems clear, say party sources, is that after what happened in the Catalan government, everything indicates that if the former mayor decides to run there will be no internal debate among postconvergents who might question that step. This is no time for more storms in Junts.
As for the surveys that Martí cites, there are those who say that they exceed the 10 mayors he achieved in 2015, and others who lower the forecast to 8 or 9 mayors, which would already be three or four more than the group has now.
Trias set four conditions to lead the post-convergent list in May: freedom to make the list; stability in Junts and in the Government; freedom to choose post-election coalitions, and go to his house if he doesn’t become the next mayor.
A pact with the PSC
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The first seems guaranteed. The second will not happen, and now it’s time to digest it and move on despite the breach. In fact Trias has already rectified it before, since in May he assured that he would not appear and then he has reconsidered it. The third now seems easier than before: once the Govern shared with the ERC has been broken, who would oppose Trias relying on a third party, called the PSC, to leave Colau and Ernest Maragall, mayor of the ERC, out of the government?
The last condition is also accepted, and part of the conviction that if Trias leaves, there will be profiles to lead the group, be it that of its current president, Neus Munté, or that of the former Minister of Health, Josep Maria Argimon, called to be listed in Trias as number three. And if even if he leaves, the former mayor has improved Junts’ numbers, no one in the party will think it bad.