After the electoral call in Catalonia for next May 12, the PSC is preparing for the assault on the Generalitat behind closed doors, with an ordinary congress that begins today and will last the entire weekend. The conclave will once again elevate Salvador Illa as first secretary of the party, who will be surrounded by a new leadership but with an air of continuity. In the new executive commission of the PSC, the mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Núria Parlon, who will be the new spokesperson and secretary of security and coexistence, and the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, who will be the deputy to the first secretariat of the party, stand out. and president of the council of mayors.
Along with them, the executive will have Lluïsa Moret as deputy first secretary, and therefore Illa's number two in the party, and the current spokesperson for the parliamentary group in the Catalan Chamber, Alícia Romero, who will assume the secretary of economy, will acquire more prominence. research and knowledge.
Illa maintains the weight of the organization in the current leaders: José Luis Jimeno, secretary of organization and electoral action, and Joaquín Fernández, secretary of municipal policy, implementation and territory. And it remains to be seen whether Miquel Iceta continues as president of the PSC, and the mayor of L'Hospitalet, Núria Marín, as vice president.
With these changes and those that remain to be known, Illa reformulates an internal organizational chart to resemble the one that existed in José Montilla's time, and in which he wanted to reinforce the figure of Collboni as mayor of the first city in Catalonia and the municipalist character of the PSC.
Collboni, who is currently secretary of municipal politics of the PSC, will be a close collaborator of Illa in the party, while Parlon, mayor of the ninth city of Catalonia, socialist bastion in Besòs, will be in charge of giving voice to the project that the Catalan socialists are preparing for the new stage.
Illa thus recovers Parlon for a high organizational position after achieving, in the 28-M elections, his third consecutive absolute majority. The leader of the PSC has decided to involve her in the day-to-day of her training, making her responsible for the communication task, a task that has been occupied since 2021 by Elia Tortolero, who will now take charge of the PSC training secretariat.
This is not the first time that Parlon has held a position of high organic responsibility. She was deputy first secretary of the formation between July 2014 and November 2016, and even joined the federal executive of the PSOE in 2017 as secretary of social cohesion and integration, although only for four months.
But above all, Parlon is remembered for the dispute she had in the PSC primary process with Miquel Iceta, at the end of 2016. Iceta won those elections by a narrow margin, at a time when support was being debated. of the PSOE to the investiture of Mariano Rajoy.
The unity that Iceta and Parlón showed after those primaries was cut short shortly after, with the application of article 155 in Catalonia. The decision, supported by Iceta, caused new cracks to emerge within the PSC and Parlon, in disagreement, resigned from the federal executive of the PSOE.
The mayor was attributed a sovereigntist profile as a result of statements in 2016, during a debate on the role of municipalism in the process organized by Òmnium Cultural in Badalona. In a very different context from the current one, with an intense debate in the PSC about sovereignty, Parlon was in favor of a legal consultation in Catalonia, as it was then "a necessity for citizens", although she recognized that this option was incompatible with the position of the PSOE and that posed a problem for the PSC.
Even so, Illa wanted to count on her for this new stage of the PSC due to her management at the head of the Santa Coloma council, especially in the field of citizen security, an issue on which the Catalan socialists want to emphasize. So much so that in the socialist family, especially in the metropolitan area, Parlon has emerged as a reference in this matter.
The XV congress of the PSC that begins today at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya will have the presence of the former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has become one of the main political references of the PSOE, with direct involvement in successive campaigns electoral. And on Sunday, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will accompany the leader of the PSC at the closing of the conclave.
The designation of Illa as a candidate for the Catalan elections will remain pending, in a national council that has not yet been dated.
