The first mayor of the democratic era of Badalona, Màrius Díaz Bielsa (Barbastro, 6 August 1933) has died in the Barbastro Hospital. Militant of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) governed in the City Council in coalition with the socialists between 1979 and 1983, with a group of militant communists and independent politicians.
The Badalona City Council has decreed two days of official mourning. The city flags fly at half mast in the Casa de la Vila and in the municipal buildings for the man who was mayor between 1979 and 1983 and councilor until 1999.
The current mayor of Badalona, Rubén Guijarro, highlighted this Saturday through his Twitter account that Díaz was a "tireless defender of social policies and public health" and has conveyed his condolences to all his friends and family. Condolences have been joined by all the political forces of the City Council.
Díaz was married to the teacher and feminist activist, Teresa Lleal, of whom he was widowed in 1988. With her he shared many cultural concerns, as a member of the Joventuts Musicals and promoting the historic Al Vent bookstore, on Sant Joaquim street, next to many other activities. As a neighborhood activist he founded the Gorg Neighborhood Association.
Originally from Barbastro, Màrius Díaz moved to Barcelona to start his nautical studies. During this time he stayed with a friendly family from Badalona who had a metallurgical workshop, where he worked sporadically to pay for his studies. When he finished his studies, he did not direct his professional life to sailing, but rather opened a foundry, in whose workshop, during the sixties, political leaflets of the PSUC were also clandestinely printed. Later he was director of a shipbuilding company in Baix Llobregat.
In 1979 the PSUC proposed that he lead the list in the first democratic elections, which was the most voted on that April 1. This is the graphic document of the first democratic elections in Badalona from the City Museum. During his tenure, he prioritized public health issues such as the sanitation of beaches, the reduction of air pollution, and rationalized urban planning. He also deployed social services and built public schools, as well as the first impulse to the Germans Trias e Pujol hospital. In four years he launched new markets, civic centers, sports facilities and consolidated the May Festival.
Because of the internal division in the PSUC, between Eurocommunist and pro-Soviet factions, he lost the 1983 elections in which he repeated as head of the list. He later went to Iniciativa per Catalunya where he ran for the 1995 elections, being the second force with seven councillors. He was a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia during the second legislature (1984-188) replacing the historic Eulàlia Vintró. On February 28, 2020, he was named adoptive son of the city of Badalona.
At the end of his political stage, Màrius Díaz moved to his home in the Pineta Valley, in the Huesca Pyrenees, where he sometimes received his friends, among whom was the singer-songwriter José Antonio Labordeta
The first democratic mayor of Badalona, died in the Barbastro Hospital on the verge of turning 90 in August, due to acute peritonitis that was complicated by his diabetes and could not be treated surgically.
