While in the rest of Spain, the scrutiny yielded some dramatic data for the socialist party, in Catalonia the PSC climbed to the top of the podium on election night, leaving ERC behind, which four years ago was the first force in votes. It had been 16 years since the Socialists had been in first place in municipal elections.
The PSC –which has accumulated 711,000 votes– has been the first party in Tarragona. Lleida and even in Girona. Also in Reus. However, this result does not make up for Jaume Collboni's narrow defeat against Xavier Trias in Barcelona. The old fox has had his way.
However, in number of councillors, ERC and also Junts surpass the socialist party but in neither case are they able to reach the figures they obtained four years ago.
While waiting to be able to carefully analyze the results, it seems clear that a part of the pro-independence voters stayed at home. This differential abstention – in the rest of Spain the participation was higher – would have harmed all the parties, not only the independence movement, but if there was a victim it was Esquerra, which last night lost more than 300,000 votes compared to 2009.
The result of Barcelona, with Ernest Maragall who has obtained 73,000 votes -in 2019 he achieved 160,000- but also that of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, who with the media-famous Gabriel Rufián has obtained 4 councilors while his adversary, the socialist Núria Parlón, consolidated again its absolute majority, or the poor result of Alba Vergès in Igualada, where it will be the third force behind the Junts and PSC candidacy, shows that yesterday was not a good night for ERC.
Junts has not fared so badly. Beyond Barcelona's victory, the party has scored some notable results, such as Sant Cugat del Vallès, where it has managed to keep its position as the first force intact.
Commons have fared worse. Reduced to being the third force in Barcelona, they were also defeated in Montcada, one of the municipalities anointed with the visit of Yolanda Díaz during the campaign, and despite having maintained their historic stronghold of El Prat, their results have gone down in most of the squares in which they were represented. Catalonia was the community where Sumar's project, promoted by the Vice President of the Government, was a reality to the extent that the entire left came together in the candidacies, including Podemos. The general note is bad.
Although without the overwhelming force that it registered in other communities, the conservative vote in a Spanish key prospered in the Catalan vote. The PP doubled its results in Barcelona and literally swept cities like Badalona, where Xavier García Albiol became an unusual exception with his absolute majority. It was also the second force in Lleida
This positive evolution is directly related to the total collapse of Ciudadanos from which the PSC would also have benefited. Of the 239 councilors of 2019, yesterday he scored 10 in all of Catalonia.
In parallel, Vox, which in 2019 only obtained 3 councilors in all of Catalonia, was, by far, the force that obtained the best results in the 2019 comparison. Of those three, it went to 124, accumulating 150,000 votes throughout Catalonia. The Catalan-speaking extreme right also achieved some striking results, such as the one obtained by the candidacy of Aliança Catalana, which was the candidacy with the most votes, ahead of Junts and Esquerra in Ripoll.
The CUP, at the opposite extreme, did not have a great night either. He got 313 councillors, a figure somewhat lower than the one he got four years ago. Once again he failed to enter the Barcelona City Hall.
