Pre-campaign one year ahead. The announcement just a week ago by the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, of wanting to run for a third term as head of the Barcelona City Council has accelerated the pre-election movements of the different municipal formations. Two days after Eva Parera made her candidacy official at the head of Valents, this Saturday the Republican Ernest Maragall did the same. All this, the same day that the leader of the municipal socialists, Jaume Collboni, has accused the mayor of having “precipitated the campaign.”
“Barcelona needs solutions, not elections,” Collboni, who is not yet the official candidate of the Socialists, defended during the Extraordinary Council of Mayors and Mayors of the PSC.
Right there he has defended that he will be in the municipal government until the end of the mandate, although he has harshly criticized Colau and Maragall for having stressed municipal politics with his recent announcement.
Collboni has continued with the same tone, warning that “I will not allow Barcelona to lose an entire year because of electoral nerves, nor that hasty decisions be made without rigor or debate,” he warned. In addition, he has asked the mayor if in the coming months “she will act as mayor or candidate” and has also been critical of Maragall, who was “disappeared” in the worst moments of the pandemic and at the time of closing crucial issues for the city such as the extension of El Prat or the reinforcement of tourism in the city.
ERC has also held a municipal act this Saturday, in this case to make official that Ernest Maragall, who in the previous elections was the leader who got the most votes, will repeat as head of the list for the Republicans in Barcelona. He himself sees himself capable of winning this time “incontestably” to return “pride and ambition” to the capital and address the problems of the neighborhoods once and for all.
“It is time to lead, to decide and to assume responsibilities” in Barcelona, he claimed during the act, which was supported by members of his formation such as Oriol Junqueras himself. Maragall also lamented that Barcelona is suffering from the errors of governance in recent years and has charged against the current municipal government. “The time for rhetoric is over, ideological abuse no longer gives more of itself and the new pragmatism of the State only knows how to offer old obsolete recipes”, he added.
