It is more than likely that the mayoralty of Barcelona will be decided by a single vote. Or, in other words, with the electoral law in hand, the candidate who obtains one more vote than the rest, even if it is with a very fragile majority, will be the mayor of Barcelona. Within five months, in May, the dice are going to be cast to find out how the 41 councilors who are elected in the Barcelona City Council are distributed.
On the starting grid there are four candidates with options to take over the rod, but discounting the councilors who can obtain PP, Vox and other minority formations, it does not seem that the winning candidacy is going to get more than 9 or 10 councilors. If this is the case, an absolute majority could only be achieved if three parties come together, which is not easy due to the supposed incompatibilities. Although, against the forecast, this did happen in 2019 when Ada Colau revalidated the mayoralty with the votes of the PSC and those of Manuel Valls, who had just run for election with the mantra of ousting the mayoress, and she had ensured that I would never accept their vows. Green things!
For the constitution of the city councils, the electoral law establishes that in the event that no one can add the absolute majority of the votes at the time of the investiture, which in the case of Barcelona is 21 out of 41, the candidate of the list most voted for by voters. According to this, in 2019 Ernest Maragall would have been mayor if Valls had not done the opposite of what he promised.
With this scheme, the elections on May 28 are going to become a kind of presidential election. Another thing will be how the next day is governed, but Maragall, Colau, Collboni or Trias will raise the mayor's rod if, and only if, they manage to win the elections.
Maragall is presenting himself to revalidate the victory of four years ago and fulfill the dream of taking charge of a city that he knows every inch from having been in the engine room during the long-awaited years of Pasqual Maragall as mayor. Like Xavier Trias, they will reproach him for his age, because he is!, but it will be difficult for them to overshadow his lucidity and ability to make exciting proposals. And it is certain that they will blame him for having contributed to approving the municipal budgets to avoid paralysis in the management of the city.
Colau will choose to revalidate his third term and thus serve twelve years at the helm of the city. From the first day, he has governed with the desire to keep his voters excited, even if this has been at the cost of generating strong rejection among an important part of the citizens. Not in vain, in the last municipal barometer, presented at the end of last year, he records the record in negative assessment of the management, since 50.4% consider that it is bad or very bad. But, as we have said, to win it is enough to mobilize your own voters more than anyone else, and Colau can achieve it.
Jaume Collboni is the bet of the PSC. Although they may not remember him because he has had a discreet role throughout his term, he is the first deputy mayor in the Colau government, and his party has taken responsibility for areas as sensitive as security, which continues to be the number one problem that more worries the people of Barcelona. His electoral potential has more to do with the strength of the socialist brand than with the added value that the candidate may have, which is surely the opposite of what happens to the other three mayors. We'll see if the if I've seen you, I don't remember technique to distance himself from Ada Colau will work for him.
And the former mayor Trias, after months of defoliating the daisy, presents himself as a lifeguard for Junts, the party chaired by Laura Borràs, which is not going through its best moment. Its main bet is to raise the anti-Colau flag and try to concentrate the most critical vote, disputing this terrain with the PP and other formations. In his favor, he has a conciliatory mood recognized by all, but he can be seen weighed down by the contradictions with his party in the independence debate. It is said that second parts were never good, but the voters will say if they give it another chance.
With elections on the horizon, the political temperature is going to rise with each passing week. And in the municipal ones, all the games are at stake because they are the lever to relaunch their project and the goal is Barcelona. But you can only win one.
