María Jesús Cañizares, 29 May 2023
The Catalan socialists open the door to a tripartite and propose 28M as a first round of the regional elections.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the First Secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, and the socialist candidate for mayor of Tarragona, Rubén Viñuales, during the PSC campaign event held this Friday in Tarragona (Enric Fontcoberta EFE)
The PSC was the winning party in the municipal elections in Catalonia. And although the city of Barcelona has resisted them, where they have come second behind Junts per Catalunya, they have not yet said the last word. The socialists are calling for a move to lead a progressive mayoralty.
The PSOE leadership, led by Pedro Sánchez, has thrown itself into the municipal election campaign in Catalonia to support the candidates for mayor, but also to shore up the PSC as the party of government in the next regional elections, with Salvador Illa at the helm. And the results have shown that the effort has been worthwhile.
“The first left-wing party”.
The PSC has won in number of votes – 712,949 votes, at a great distance from Junts per Catalunya, with 552,089, while ERC, winner in 2019 with 822,107 votes, moves into third position with 519,833-and they have shown that they continue to be an eminently municipalist force. The city of Barcelona has resisted them, but not everything has been said. Illa stressed yesterday that “it is the leading left-wing party in Catalonia”.
A veiled allusion to ERC and Comunes, which opens the door to a new tripartite that would repeat – in Barcelona and in future regional elections – the agreements that currently exist at the Spanish level and which governed Catalonia between 2006 and 2010. Because this 28M has also left a very clear message: the left-right axis is once again prevailing.
Metropolitan area and provincial councils
Strong in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, winner in the cities of Tarragona, Girona and Lleida, the PSC has secured the government of the four provincial councils and shored up its brand, but also that of Illa as a presidential candidate in the face of weak rivals. ERC has not been able to take advantage of the territorial control that allows it to govern the Generalitat and suffers the burden of internal struggles between sectors, while Junts must once again decide ‘what it wants to be when it grows up’. That is, what kind of strategy it embraces after the turbulent years of the pro-independence process.
Colau picks up the gauntlet
In the midst of this panorama of misguided pro-independence, Illa and Jaume Collboni, the socialist candidate for Barcelona, offered to lead a progressive mayoralty. They assured that they would respect the winner, Xavier Trias. But it was clear that this result should not condition the policy of pacts between left-wing forces.
Ada Colau, leader of the Comuns, has taken up the gauntlet: “Trias has come first, but with only eleven councillors and the progressive forces have twenty-four”, she said.
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