I don't know if it's the same for you, but I have the feeling that none of the candidates for mayor of Barcelona consider it necessary to entertain the suffering inhabitants. In some cases this is normal. Take a look at Xavier Trias, who presents himself as the leader of an anti-Colau front and says that if he doesn't win he'll go home, he's doing better and better in the polls.
Trias has had the unique ability to make it appear that he values his party less than a balance shirt, which has immediately increased his chances of success and has been surprisingly celebrated by the Junts supporters as a whole. As if they knew that to win Barcelona they have to disguise Puigdemont's game with Pujol's clothes, cross their fingers and see what happens.
At this point, the only thing that could cause Trias some electoral displeasure is the support that Mr. Bentanachs has decided to give him, that prominent ex-militant of Terra Lliure who has elevated the cuts of the Meridiana to the category of art; or an off-the-cuff statement from Mrs. Borràs, something that can never be completely ruled out.
Meanwhile, Ernest Maragall is overshadowed in the media by the showy activities of Santa Coloma's Willy Brandt, Gabriel Rufián, who, at the next step, will leave all the members of the Government in evidence. It started with Carles Campuzano and the residences for the elderly, and now it seems that he has proposed to take charge of the turbulent career of Joan Ignasi Elena.
It's strange. Perhaps the best government program for Barcelona is the one contained in Miquel Puig's latest and excellent book (The Dissatisfied City. Everything Barcelona Can Become) - one of the few municipal positions close to ERC that does not detest the city and its inhabitants – but it is clear that Maragall does not manage to get his arguments across to the electorate. So far, he's limited himself to making a bad face, something he's uniquely gifted at, and taking a few steps that, moreover, fail.
Like that of the supposed support of the intellectual world that ERC announced with great fanfare and of which nothing more has been heard (given the proverbial speed of intellectuals to put ground in the middle), or to the metaphysical doubts about who should be number two on his ticket, resolved erratically and with little impetus.
Jaume Collboni, for his part, seems to have reached the conclusion that, if he is silent, Colau's detractors will forget that he was the faithful support of his mandate until recently. It's a tactic and it sets a style. Not very promising, but a style all the same.
Meanwhile, Colau plans a classic Spanish-style campaign, with many works in dance and inaugurating things. The mayoress seems ready to show that we Barcelona residents complain about the city like Barça fans about arbitrations, that we are not so bad and that she has a plan. In the latter, he is not without reason. That he has seen all his experiments in terms of access to housing, security and alternatives to the tourist monoculture fail, that's okay: at least he has managed to make it clear that he hates citizens with cars and the State of Israel, and has become, in passing, the unsuspected benefactor of property owners.
An example is enough. A few days ago Colau took a tour of the Consell de Cent superilla to see the new planters and the wide central promenade. The tree holes, filled with dark soil, seemed to await the imminent arrival of lindens and plantains. The act itself was decaffeinated electoralism, but people seemed to like it. Especially to an acquaintance of mine, a real hawk (not to mention other birds) in the real estate sector who has several floors and a couple of business premises in one of these urban oases where prices must be increased from exponentially
A convert to the good news of the "green city", the meeting place of the environmental officials with the speculators of all life, those who are keeping the lion's share of the incomes of workers, traders and liberal professionals. The man was rubbing his hands, listening raptly to Janet Sanz and telling himself that he had just won a peck thanks to the left of the left.
So don't doubt it, at this stage Colau will win and, given the enthusiasm of the other candidates, it won't be so strange either. Of Pasqual Maragall, after all, there was only one.
