Less than a year for the next municipal elections in May 2023 and growing rumors about some candidates for mayor of Barcelona. The speculations have intensified this Monday around the PSC, a formation that now governs in the City Council together with Ada Colau and whose leader, Jaume Collboni, wants to continue leading the municipal group for the third consecutive term.
The PSC has not yet made its candidate official and has to hold, in principle, primaries after the summer to choose its mayor. Collboni has been clear for months about his desire to continue leading the socialist project for Barcelona and has even received the support of some of his party colleagues at the regional level. However, this Monday it has transpired, according to ‘El Periódico’, that Pedro Sánchez is considering the current Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, being the candidate in the Catalan capital.
This possibility has been commented on by Collboni himself, who does not see it as real given that Iceta “is acting as minister”. “In the event that there was an alternative candidate, the democratic parties have a democratic process that is the primaries and we would go to the primaries,” said Collboni, who considered that Iceta is doing “a magnificent job as Minister of Culture and Sports” and that he is acting as first deputy mayor, a position he wants to focus on before running for election next year.
In addition, Collboni has commented that he sees it unlikely that Iceta will move to municipal politics because in the party there is “a great consensus in supporting whoever governs” and has assured that he has the support of the party, in addition to the endorsement of the good results of 2019. “The candidacy that I present will be the only one and the winner,” Collboni has settled.
The deputy secretary of the PSC, Alicia Romero, has also referred to the speculations, who this Monday has guaranteed that Collboni will be the candidate: “In the PSC there are no gaps or doubts, and we are with all the support for Jaume Collboni”, has steadfastly insured.
“We have said it many times and we will not get tired of saying it: Jaume Collboni is our candidate”, Romero settled, adding that “I do not know what the intention of the PSOE is, we are the PSC, and we are an independent party”, that he will be the one who makes the decisions about the Catalan candidates, he stressed.
