Very few of the tourists who these days, like the entire year, visit Barcelona in their thousands will have realized that Catalonia is immersed in an electoral campaign. It is even likely that a good number of voters have warned that next Sunday there is an appointment with the polls.
Never before have they been seen on the streets of Barcelona – and something very similar happens in most municipalities – so little presence of the candidates for the presidency of the Generalitat. Banners, banners, balloons and other gadgets with the party logo are in short supply, and the once obligatory visits to the markets have become, fortunately for customers and also for the politicians themselves, a rarity. This is, in short, a campaign with very little poster, apparently austere, almost imperceptible beyond social networks, in the world that until recently was the real one.
On this occasion, Barcelona City Council has reserved space for the placement of 5,846 banners. But many streets that in not too distant times were filled with the faces of candidates photoshopped with greater or lesser success now appear deserted of calls to vote.
The City Council reserves streets to hang banners and makes them available to the Zone Electoral Board to distribute them based on the votes obtained by each party in the previous elections and according to the preferences of each party.
A walk through the streets of the city certifies the existence of prime areas, those roads in which those responsible for the campaign consider that it is still worth being seen. A classic that remains is Diagonal Avenue.
In its 10 kilometers from end to end, from Pedralbes to the Fòrum, 680 spaces have been reserved on poles and lampposts to hang electoral propaganda on them. There are 12 different sections in which the images of the different candidates follow one another or, in very few exceptions – for example, Oriol Junqueras in the case of ERC; Strangely, Pedro Sánchez's face does not appear in that of the PSC – those of the other party leaders.
In some main streets, citizens have escaped the gaze of the candidates: Gran Via has been excluded on this occasion and in Aribau banners of recreational and cultural activities that were already reserved for these dates before the call for elections are maintained.
On the other hand, emerging values such as Consell de Cent Street, designed for quiet walks and perhaps for reflection, have been incorporated into the list of announced roads. Here it is striking that the socialist Salvador Illa, thanks to his status as a candidate of the winning political force of the previous Catalan elections, has made the central and most coveted section of the superilla his own. And Mayor Collboni's PSC has repeatedly announced its intention not to draw up new green axes like this one in Barcelona's Eixample during this municipal mandate.
Also in recession are the banners that are hung at street intersections – Barcelona has enabled a hundred – and the large billboards located at strategic points at the entrances to the cities. These are times of advertising austerity and political parties watch every last cent of their limited campaign budget.
More difficult, if possible, is to find the classic poster that a few decades ago completely covered the urban landscape and that today is an endangered species that not all parties continue to use. In Barcelona, the City Council has installed 500 cardboard supports to avoid the prohibited, and in theory fined, posting of posters on facades, windows and street furniture. In many cases, after the halfway point of the campaign, they are still unreleased.
