Ernest Maragall’s worst five days

Ernest Maragall has completed a kind of Tour of Disgrace this Monday. He has lived what are probably his worst five days leading the ERC group at Barcelona City Council. He began these 120 hours by voting against Ada Colau’s budget project for 2022. He has ended them by announcing that he will facilitate the approval of those accounts. The pact between the Comuns and the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has forced him to rectify. The image of his appearance in Parliament, retracing the steps, has been shocking.

“The commons have branched out Barcelona. Alright, we take note & rdquor;, has declared, somewhat reminiscent of that black knight from a Monty Python movie, ‘The Knights of the Square Table’, who continues to challenge his rivals despite being defeated and dismembered.

At the gates of triumph

It is true that Maragall already lived bitter days before the mandate began. He was on the verge of achieving the mayoralty of Barcelona after the elections of May 26, 2019. He won them, by 5,000 votes, thus opening the door to the possibility of a historical event: that the brother of a mayor, and not just any mayor, was after him. But in the end the unprecedented situation was starred by Ada Colau, by becoming the first person to take over the command staff without winning the municipal elections, thanks to the three votes received by Manuel Valls, Eva Parera and Celestino Corbacho in the investiture two and a half years ago.

Everything indicated that ERC in general and Maragall in particular would react angrily to this situation, that they would not forgive what happened to the exporter of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgage (PAH). That they wouldn’t even give him water. But it was not like that. Republicans were willing to make a constructive opposition to the government of Barcelona en Comú and the PSC.

And it wasn’t your typical mouthpiece message: ERC has become in the two and a half years that it has been in office a stable external partner with which they have agreed on the most relevant issues. Esquerra has approved Colau’s budgets for 2020 and 2021, as well as the ordinances. They have supported the connection of the tram, they have agreed to recharge the tourist tax. Messi said to the Portuguese Pepe in the Barça-Madrid of the Mourinho era: “You appear in the photos of all the goals & rdquor ;, implying that they were his fault. Maragall, in this case positive, It appears in all the photos of the great decisions of the mandate. Until he decided that it was convenient to distance himself.

Inflection point

In May, Maragall announced that from the middle of the ERC mandate he would take a certain distance: “We will express our disagreement with greater intensity and we will increase our demand & rdquor ;. After the summer holidays, the notice became concrete. Last Monday, two days before the vote in committee of the initial process of the municipal budgets, he declared: “We will vote ‘No’ with absolute conviction and responsibility. The Colau-Collboni government has earned it hard in these two years of non-compliance, of contempt for the neighborhoods and the city and for the lack of a project and horizon for Barcelona, ​​which is striving to have it. “He went from constant support to ‘No’ was somewhat abrupt, but it had a point of logic, because abstention allowed budgets to continue their process, so in practice it was almost like voting in favor.

On Wednesday he made good on his threat. It was a considerable blow to the government of ‘comuns’ and socialists, who were forced to extend the accounts, to try to approve them through a question of trust or to seek new partners. But the attack was innocuous, because Barcelona for Change, with Eva Parera at the helm – again the support that made Colau mayor. they voted in favor of the accounts, arguing that this allowed debate and that it was possible to try to improve the project before the final vote, in December.

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As if that were not enough, that day Aragonès was already flirting with the idea of ​​agreeing on the Generalitat’s budgets with the ‘comuns’, and council voices assumed that if that worked, Maragall would have rushed and would have to rectify. As has happened. There is an ending option that messes it up a bit more. That Junts does not join the Aragonès agreement with the ‘comuns’, that they explode everything and that ERC can vote again against Colau’s accounts, completing a grotesque affair.

Now, Maragall faces the situation defeated by the commitments of his party, despite emphasizing that what prevails is the stability of the Catalan Government. He has already said several times that he wants to perform again in 2023, when he will be 80 years old. You feel ready to repeat. But this week will not help you much in that endeavor. Meanwhile, the name of Ester Capella, ‘former councilor’ and former councilor in Barcelona, continues to sound for the municipal that will be held in a half year. In some circles it sounds like number two. In others already as alcaldable.