When the CUP decided whether to approve Colau’s budgets

There was a time when the CUP had in its power to decide if the budgets of the city of Barcelona prospered or not. A period in which the anti-capitalists were decisive for Ada Colau to be able to approve initiatives. Not that they had the whole upper hand, but they did have a piece of it. It was in Colau’s first term as mayor, from 2015 to 2019, during which she, in fact, failed to approve the accounts by vote even once.

The CUP did allow it to carry out specific budgetary modifications. But he did not hesitate to force a vote to be delayed if he considered that it did not make sense to agree. The upper hand, at least in part.

environment off

It is a very different situation from the one that the anti-capitalist candidacy is experiencing today, headed by the little-known member of Parliament Basha Changue. The atmosphere is not especially one of victory, and the media attention that the head of the list receives is scarce, largely because if you are not in the town hall you do not get much follow-up. It is also true that in the end the results could turn the funeral into a party. That to enter, the CUP could be arithmetically decisive for agreements during the mandate. But for now the feeling that prevails is not that this is going to happen.

Members of the CUP maintain that if the municipal elections were held now, their list would achieve more than 5% of the votes, the minimum percentage necessary to obtain representation in the Barcelona City Council. But that moderate, very moderate optimism coexists with the fact that the ‘Cuperos’ eyes are more focused on the results they have in other places, such as Girona or Tarragona.

eight years ago

What an atmosphere so different from that of eight years ago, when the anti-capitalists made the government of Barcelona in Comú sweat to reach some agreements. They did not renounce their more visual activism: the image of the councilor became very important Josep Gargante throwing counterfeit 500-euro bills in the middle of a municipal plenary session to reject a debate on the Winter Olympic Games that Barcelona will not hold for now. But they also engaged in serious debates. A combined position of protest and demand for the voice of the people.

In this last facet, the CUP performed another notable function that visibly bothered Barcelona en Comú and the woman recently elected as the first female mayor in the city’s history at that time: the three councilors were her voice of conscience, her Jiminy Cricket. If Colau cut his salary to 2,000-odd euros, they did it to 1,600. If Colau defended citizen participation, they did it much more. If she was anti-establishment, they were the system’s bombers.

The candidacy that was not

Not surprisingly, the two parties failed to reach an agreement to run together when they met to discuss it before the 2015 election. They went separately and the CUP achieved 51,945 votes in those elections, 7.42% of the votes, which three councilors gave it. Maria Jose Lecha. Maria Rovira and Josep Garganté were chosen to start a municipal adventure in the Catalan capital that did not have a second part.

In 2019, with Anna Saliente as head of the list, they stayed at 29,318 votes, 3.9%. They did not enter. Members of the organization say that two reasons led to this. One, that the ‘procés’ effect had been diluted and that this was decisive: “The CUP is not a party. It is a revolutionary movement. The more movement in the street, the better it goes & rdquor ;, says one of its members.

The second reason: Jordi Graupera. But let’s leave the philosopher, commentator and tweeter for last, the one who was mayor of Madrid four years ago Barcelona is Capital-Primarieswho destroyed so many dreams as a candidate for mayor of the city, without achieving his own.

against slavery

Changue, they say, is a lousy rally speaker but a solid activist. What is good for the long term and bad for an electoral campaign. During the run-up to the campaign, she has essentially stood out for having denounced that the reparation that she considers essential to the victims of the slave trade by Catalans has not been given, which meant as much hardship for the former as it was a business for the latter.

So, the pond that is often Twitter filled her with insults, when not threats. For now, that front is the only one that has led Changue to have some media attention.

Graupera, Valls and Colau

They say that Valents, Ciutadans and Vox could be harmed by the fragmentation of the constitutionalist vote. This competition can weigh down the three groups, and also the PP, but with less risk of leaving it out of the consistory.

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If it happens, if in the end everyone falls due to their own competition, the effect would be something similar to that of Graupera in 2019 among the pro-independence candidates. Then, the philosopher achieved 28,253 votes, 3.7%. He was left out of the city council for not reaching 5%, and it was decisive so that the CUP did not enter either. To complete the play, the votes that he snatched from ERC were key, as the Republicans lament when the subject is brought up, so that Ernest Maragall was not mayor.

A balance, that of four years ago, which is a difficult paradox to overcome: the candidates of the independence movement and constitutionalism who presented themselves so that Colau would not continue in charge of the city, read Graupera and Manuel Valls, ended up getting him to repeat.

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