The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE has a clear commitment to this Sunday's elections: Barcelona. Thus it is understood that Pedro Sánchez closed the electoral campaign in the Catalan capital this Friday, unlike his greatest rival, the leader of the PP Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has done so in Madrid. The president's bet is to win the mayoralty that is now occupied by Ada Colau, Yolanda Díaz's highest standard-bearer as presidential candidate, and thus see his management revalidated in a "difficult" legislature, due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but marked by an intense social management and the so-called reunion agenda in Catalonia.
With these credentials, Sánchez took the stage of his last meeting, in the Vall d'Hebron Pavilion, before 4,000 people and accompanied by the candidate for Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, the former president of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa. While the leader of Sumar did the same in favor of Colau in another of the city's districts, in Sant Martí.
"Some want to return to the Spain of 2013, the Spain of cuts and precariousness," said Sánchez, referring to the previous PP government; "Others want to return to the Catalonia of 2017, the Catalonia of discord and division," he reproached the pro-independence parties, but in the midst "we are the majority who want to advance in employment, rights and coexistence," he proclaimed. And the president asked that majority to vote, "to move forward and never go back." "Let's not forget the pandemic or now the war," he recalled, after proclaiming that "voting for the PSOE is voting for the social shield in the face of adversity"
Sánchez was also proud of the campaign that the Socialists have carried out, "positively and purposefully, with education towards the adversary and with the respect that citizens deserve"; a tone that he was confident he would give victory to his party "in the face of insults from those who have nothing to offer."
In a local key, the head of the Executive asked to concentrate the progressive vote "in the only party that can recover the strength of Barcelona", the PSC "with Collboni at the helm as the next mayor", he harangued.
A Collboni who projected into the future supported by the legacy of the socialist mayors that the city has had: Narcís Serra, Pasqual Maragall, Joan Clos and Jordi Hereu. “The PSC gave Barcelona the best years, we have never failed, we are going to follow their example and we are going to make Barcelona great again with a mayor who governs for all, with the ability to dream of great events and who at the same time has care of the neighborhoods”, he proclaimed.
The Socialist mayor believes that the main enemy on Sunday is abstention, although he also had a message for the other two candidates who, according to polls, are competing for mayor alongside him. "Neither Colau nor Trias, now it's time to turn the page and open a new stage," said the candidate, who also stuck out the PSC acronym: "The leaders of my party are here, I don't do like Mr. Trias, who hides the estelada when the elections arrive and that he says that he is not from Junts but campaigns with Borràs and Puigdemont ”.
The PSC leader also praised the "useful policy" that in his opinion Sánchez has undertaken at the head of the Government. A policy that "got us out of the pandemic", he recalled, and that has allowed a new stage of dialogue, coexistence, harmony to open in Catalonia ”. Illa asked the socialists for a useful vote "to carry out useful politics, to reach an agreement, to respect each other, so that Catalonia can move from complaining to work."
Former President Zapatero also reinforced Sánchez's message in Barcelona. Presented as "one of the best presidents Spain has ever had", he precisely remarked "the bravery, courage and conviction" of Sánchez to "pacify Catalonia", and reproached Feijóo for having been looking for "a UFO" during the electoral campaign "to say that Pedro Sánchez is to blame". Faced with the "vacuum of content" and of proposals that he has seen in the PP in this campaign, Zapatero pointed out that the PSOE has carried out "the greatest social policy of democracy" and launched a warning to the leader of the PP: "That it does not happen to him like Casado... that he reaches the generals."
