The interest that the CNI had in the post-election agreements in Barcelona in 2019, uncovered yesterday by La Vanguardia, has left a pre-campaign effluvium in the environment, although there is still a year to go before the municipal elections.
A listening of the CNI, according to the documentation that it provided to the secret commission of the Congress of May 5, was intended to know the progress of the negotiations for the formation of the municipal government between ERC and Barcelona in Comú, in the event that they could put an end to a pro-independence mayor in Barcelona.
His knowledge has caused a bitter clash between Republicans and the purple space, after the ERC candidate, Ernest Maragall, reacted yesterday to the news by accusing Ada Colau of collusion with the CNI. The accusations greatly irritated the common people, who came out in a storm to demand a rectification in the face of such "infamy".
Maragall accused Colau in various media of participating with Spanish intelligence to retain the mayor's office after the last municipal ones, in which ERC and BComú tied for 10 mayors, although the Republicans won in votes. In the end, Colau agreed to the mayor's office thanks to an agreement with the PSC and the abstention of two mayors from BCN Canvi-Cs, and Maragall points to a collusion that, in his opinion, delegitimizes the agreement that is still maintained in Barcelona.
"They were not negotiations -of investiture-, but it was predetermined, prepared and monitored so that the talks could not progress, with the knowledge and participation of Colau, because to maintain power anything goes, even the help of the CNI", he dispatched Maragall.
One of the 18 people whom the CNI has acknowledged having spied on was of interest to the Spanish secret service in that he was aware of the negotiations between ERC and Barcelona en Comú after the elections, with a view to an eventual pact. This interest was reflected in the arguments presented by the CNI to the Supreme Court judge who protects her actions and who, after analyzing them, validates or denies them. That interest – profusely argued – was not the only one that said person had for the CNI; her militancy and her links with the pro-independence world were also of interest to the Spanish secret service.
This fact leads the Republican to conclude that “everything was prepared so that the talks could not twist what had already been decided” and, in his opinion, invalidates the pact with the PSC that supports the municipal government: “If it were Jaume Collboni (PSC) or Ada Colau, I would think twice before calmly continuing with their positions knowing that they are the object of explicit democratic manipulation”, he stressed.
Maragall has Junts as an ally in his reproaches, which among the list of those spied on by the CNI has the councilor of the consistory and deputy in Parliament Elsa Artadi. With no candidate yet for the next municipal elections, it was the group's spokesman at the City Council, Jordi Martí Galbis, who joined Maragall's denunciation of a "state operation to prevent Barcelona from having a pro-independence mayor."
The commons came out in a storm via social networks to demand from Maragall and ERC the "immediate rectification" in the face of "a very serious and false slander with a clear partisan intention."
In the purple space they consider that Maragall accuses the "nerves" of being overtaken by Colau and that is why he takes advantage of the occasion to warm up engines. But for now, the polls are not favorable to the ERC candidate. The last Barcelona barometer in December indicated a setback for Maragall against Colau, and, although the mayor has not yet decided whether to present herself for the third time, on Saturday she received the resounding endorsement of her bases, who voted for her to present a proposal from the Minister of Universities Joan Subirats. The vote ended with 221 votes in favor, one abstention and none against.
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