Ernest Maragall has warned throughout the campaign of the "risk" of a government in Barcelona subject to the guidelines of Madrid. For the Republican mayor, the socialist candidate, Jaume Collboni, has been suspended due to his inaction when it came to vindicating Barcelona and his passivity in the face of the resounding failures of the Rodalies network. The veteran politician considered yesterday that commoners and socialists have sinned as "obscene" and wanting to demonstrate an "ostentation of power" by making use of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and the vice president, Yolanda Díaz, in their electoral acts in the capital .
Faced with this overdose of display of power, Maragall cries out for "doing politics and giving a voice to the citizenry." During these last two weeks he has reproached Collboni for his evolution "toward liberal-conservative positions" which, in his opinion, would encourage a pact with the mayor of Junts, Xavier Trias, to which the PP could join, in function of electoral arithmetic.
Yesterday, Maragall gathered a good part of the members of his candidacy at the Mirador del Alcalde, on the Montjuïc mountain, before the end of the campaign event in the afternoon, in the La Paloma room, which included the participation of the presidents of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, and from the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès. To the mantra against submitting to Madrid and the call to vote to prevent the entry of Vox, the Republicans have not tired of lamenting the "shame pact" that elevated Ada Colau to the mayor's office thanks to the support of the fleeting Manuel Valls and of the PSC.
Maragall did not want to specify with whom he would be willing to seal alliances after Sunday. He believes that in these last two terms of office of Colau, Barcelona has lost its way, that it has not exercised its role as capital, which is why it is urgent to open a new stage. Faced with two of the most pressing challenges, the resounding housing deficit and mobility, he assures that if he governs he will be in a position to lay the foundations to put a total of 20,000 apartments on the market, at a rate of 5,000 a year. And his recipe for decongesting the city with vehicles includes setting up some thirty car parks in towns near the capital, connected to public transport, as well as activating the construction of a third railway tunnel, between the Morrot and the França station.
Yesterday, Maragall settled the controversy over the attempt by other candidates to take advantage of his brother's legacy. "Pasqual is a collective heritage, he belongs to all of us," he said, while deploring that Collboni tried to appropriate his figure and accused him of being "heir to those who betrayed, marginalized, abandoned, denied, and rejected him." .
