The central act of the PP campaign in Barcelona, which will take place tomorrow Saturday at the Vil la Florida civic center in the Sant Gervasi neighborhood, has been prepared down to the last detail by the candidate Daniel Sirera, who wants to express his support received by officials and militants from other political parties, particularly Ciudadanos, whose representation aspires to fully absorb on May 28.
The mayor of the PP met for this purpose last week with some twenty district councilors and Ciudadanos advisers in Barcelona, as La Vanguardia has learned, at a dinner that took place in a restaurant in the Barceloneta neighborhood and in the who were the councilors of the municipal group of Ciudadanos Paco Sierra, already expelled from the party, and Noemí Martín and the former regional deputy Carmen de Rivera, who was a member of the liberal formation until last year.
After the signing of Paco Sierra, expelled from Ciudadanos last fall after a crude confrontation with the party leadership over the leadership of the municipal group that precipitated the departure of Luz Guilarte and his replacement by Anna Grau in the candidacy, this movement by Sirera can suppose the definitive blow to the representation of the liberal formation in the Barcelona City Council.
However, Grau has downplayed the support that Sirera has obtained from former Ciudadanos members and, convinced of the good progress of his campaign and his chances at the polls, has described as "losers" (losers) those who Not having a place on their list, they abandoned the formation to join the ranks of the PP with weapons and baggage.
At the moment, in the event tomorrow Saturday, it is expected that, in addition to Carmen de Rivera, who already attended the rally yesterday Thursday with Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the Turó Park, also former deputies in Parliament Mercè Escofet and Jorge Feijóo, who were appointed district councilors in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi and Les Corts, respectively, in 2021, after losing their seat in the Catalan Chamber, and the former senator of the liberal formation Xavier Alegre.
De Rivera was the first deputy elected on the Ciudadanos lists, in 2009, and left the party in 2022, after having led, together with former deputy Antonio Espinosa, the critical platform Renovadores Ciudadanos, which disputed the leadership in Catalonia to Carlos Carrizosa after the poor results in the 2021 Parliamentary elections, in which the formation went from 36 to 6 seats.
In the presentation of Paco Sierra as a new member of the PP, Sirera himself reiterated that his desire is to turn the party into the "common house of constitutionalism", and, although he assured that Sierra had not signed up for any position, the next day the still councilor of Barcelona City Council sat at the presidential table, together with the popular mayor, at an informative breakfast held at the Palace hotel.
"Paco Sierra is a person who perfectly represents the voter whom I ask to help me, he knows that voting has consequences and can serve two purposes: to consolidate the left and separatism or to join forces so that Barcelona is a great city and a great capital of Spain", said Sirera at the headquarters of the PP together with the deputy Lorena Roldán, a pioneer in the path that goes from Ciudadanos to the popular ranks after being relegated by Carrizosa as a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat.
For Roldán, at this moment the PP is the "reference" for the people of Barcelona who defend "the principles of the Constitution". "We are the strength of all those who defend freedom and equality before the law. And it is clear that Barcelona will be able to be reborn, recover and go back to being what it had been before if constitutionalism unites around the PP", assured the deputy in Parliament, number two on Alejandro Fernández's list in the February 2021 elections.
Not in vain Sirera is focusing her campaign on asking for the "useful vote" of the non-independence center-right: "If all the people who plan to vote for political formations that are not going to have representation -in reference to Ciudadanos but also to Valents- voted for the PP, we would become the second force in the City Council," he repeated yesterday Thursday at the event with Feijóo and Alejandro Fernández, president of the party in Catalonia.
