Perhaps because he had time to mature it, perhaps because on the day of the municipal elections, May 28, it was clear that I would not be mayor again, Ada Colau has not been seen to demonstrate excessive suffering due to the loss of the position she held from 2015 until last June 17. They have been eight very intense years in the life of a person who until then lived without suffering excessive media pressure despite the fact that as spokesperson for the Platform for People Affected by Mortgage (PAH) It was already somewhat known. What is clear is that as an activist she did not have the enemies that she made after her.
As mayor, her character and her management have had an obvious polarization effect: The people who loved her have continued to appreciate her, while those who hate her, the other half, have become entrenched in their hatred. In the rejection of some of the measures she took, such as the reduction of public space for private vehicles and open opposition to real estate funds, they mixed false accusations like the one about the fact that he had bought cheap houses or the one about the fact that he spent vacation days incognito in resorts deluxe.
Less pressure
With the loss of the mayor’s office, The pause has arrived. Barcelona en Comú finished third in the municipal elections, just 350 votes behind the second, the PSC, although with one less councilor, which became a significant nuance. As a third force, the Comuns found it practically impossible to impose Colau as mayor, not even during part of her mandate.
So once the dog died, the rage ended, and the approach of the Comuns became different. From seeking participation in the government that has not yet materialized, to using the nine councilors achieved to condition the government on the extension of the investiture, with the argument of saving as much as possible the management carried out by preventing Junts from running the city and dismantle his legacy. And all this with the cost of doing it with the help of the PP after ensuring that it would not do so. But after Colau repeated as mayor in 2019 thanks to Manuel Valls, what happened this summer has not been particularly striking.
Public transport
Since the investiture plenary session, which had to be that of Xavier Trias and ended up being that of Jaume Collboni, Colau has been able to largely disappear from the stage. It is evident that since July she has been seen little, although sources from Barcelona en Comú emphasize that she maintains a similar work activity: “The pace of work has not slowed down, only that of public exhibition.”
What the same sources do confirm is that the former mayor He has been able to recover a relevant part of his private life. As mayor, she was already going to take her children to school at the start of her day. It’s something she continues to do, she says. Which has always been non-negotiable. But they need that now move again on public transport, relegating the official car that has carried it in recent years. The truth is that the metro is by far the best way to get to Plaça de Sant Jaume with Via Laietana under construction, but that is another story.
On top of negotiations
Colau works in her office as president of the Barcelona en Comú group, in morning and afternoon sessions: “She is on top of the government negotiations in Barcelona,” indicates a member of the party organization. But her public presence has reduced. After spending the holidays with her family, in September she gave two interviews, one to Betevé and the other to ‘Els Matins de TV3’.
At La Mercè, he kept a low profile, he only attended the proclamation. At the municipal plenary session last Friday he intervened, but during the previous days, in which Barcelona en Comú has begun to act as an opposition group, the faces of the group have been its spokesperson and its deputy spokesperson, Jordi Martí and Janet Sanz.
Minister, activist, councilor
People on his team say that Colau has had to endure a constant audit that is far superior to people who have been in politics for decades, and that it is logical that after the electoral outcome the magnifying glass has lost strength. But his collaborators insist that although he does not always transcend, he has “a lot of presence in the city”, with attendance at neighborhood parties, plays, events of social entities.
It is a stage that seems like the calm before a new life that is about to be defined. Colau has stated that his purpose is to close a left-wing pact in Barcelona before leaving the city council, that is, an alliance with the PSC and to be able to be ERC so that the 24 councilors that add up form a stable majority. Nobody believes that she intends to be deputy mayor of a government with Collboni as mayor.
Housing, Equality, Social Rights
Related news
This Monday it emerged that Yolanda Díaz has proposed her as one of the ministers of the areas that correspond to Sumar, with options to become the head of Housing, Equality or Social Rights. But Barcelona en Comú denies that right now they are talking about who will occupy ministries.
What is incontestable is that Colau is now enjoying a certain withdrawal after eight years of constant activity that she will surely not be able to maintain when she begins her next stage, be it as a minister, as an activist, as a leader of an international entity or in the work that she ends up assuming. , because as one of the most prominent members of her team said weeks ago: “Actually, maybe she doesn’t even know what she will do in a while.”