Several parties have joined forces to prevent the independence candidate from returning to the town hall of Barcelona. The socialist Jaume Collboni is therefore the new mayor.
By NJ with AFP
© LLUIS GENE / AFP
Published on
VSouch of theater in Barcelona. After a surprise agreement with two rival political parties, the city council elected a new socialist mayor on Saturday June 17, thus giving new life to the party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez before the legislative elections on July 23.
The socialist candidate for mayor, Jaume Collboni, found himself in second place after the municipal and regional elections at the end of May, winning ten out of the 41 seats on the municipal council of the great metropolis of Catalonia. But hours before the city council vote, the Barcelona en Comu party of outgoing leftist mayor Ada Colau announced that its nine members would support Jaume Collboni.
READ ALSOLocal elections in Spain: Pedro Sanchez suffers a heavy setback
“Avoid a government” independence
This initiative was supported by the People’s Party (PP, conservative) which holds two seats, which gives the new councilor a narrow majority of 21 representatives.
Although the Socialists and the PP were fierce political rivals, the Conservative party was not keen on Xavier Trias of the independence party Junts per Catalunya becoming mayor of Barcelona again. The former city councilor, between 2011 and 2015, was nevertheless the favorite, his party having come out on top in the elections of May 28, with eleven seats won.
READ ALSOWhy the left lost in SpainIn a press release, Barcelona en Comu also explained that it wanted to “avoid a Junts government that would lay a red carpet for lobbies and sectors favorable to far-right policies”.
The “mayor of all”
After his swearing in, Jaume Collboni, 53, said he wanted “to be the mayor of everyone”. He therefore succeeds Ada Colau, a former housing rights activist elected to head a citizens’ platform supported by the radical left party Podemos, which notably made even more streets pedestrian-friendly and limited the opening of new hotels for trying to curb the excesses of mass tourism.
Polls indicate that Pedro Sanchez will have to fight hard in the early legislative elections on July 23 to be re-elected.