The rumors about what could come out of the Podemos Citizen Council were intense. However, and as expected, nothing new came out of it.. In reality, the leaders of the parties that make up Sumar are thinking as much or more about the day after the elections than about the elections themselves.. More Madrid is willing to get rid of what they understand as a heavy burden, that of Podemos; IU is thinking about survival after giving up on the charts “in exchange for a hug”; those of Iglesias, making calculations about what position they will occupy after 23-J and what revenue they can get from it; Compromís is only his own, and so on. Meanwhile, Diaz's team knows they need to get a good result to really lead the space behind, so they will try to widen their electoral base as much as possible.. But, above all, it is moving its pieces on the lists to have its own support once the elections are held.

There are actually two positions within Add. The dominant one is that of Yolanda Díaz, and that of some formations that accompany her, which aspire to give a significant change to the national left.. They have a new ideological orientation, because here it has never been a majority on the left. Its master lines, environmentalism, feminism and green labor, have appeared drawn in recent times by all kinds of lefts, but it is not so much about the programmatic lines as the position they want to occupy. They seek in Spain the space of the German green left.

The other great novelty appears in the profile they wish to offer to the electorate. They entrusted the execution of the program to a group of experts, among whom university professors predominated, whose intention was to configure a kind of more advanced version of the Spain 2030 of the Foresight Office, but from which some clear measures could be extracted to these choices. In addition, they intend to show an image of solvency, linked to the image that their leader has shown at the head of the Ministry of Labor, and far from that amateurism that sounded fresh before having government responsibility, but that later has caused them serious problems..

Separate from leftism

The configuration of their lists is also intended to suggest to voters that they are an evolved left, that they have representative people who offer professional credibility.. For this reason, among other reasons, a diplomat has been preferred as number 2 on the Madrid list rather than a trade unionist, who has been relegated to number 6, since they understood that it generated more social trust and distanced them from old leftist remnants.. That is why they have chosen as number 3 (in the Más Madrid posts) Tesh Sidi, a young woman, feminist, anti-colonialist and big data expert; or as number 7 to Alda Recas, nurse and visible head of the White Tide. This intention to separate from leftism has led them not to offer IU starting positions in Madrid; They have had to accept Podemos by force.

This faction of Sumar believes that the time has come to make other policies that give a different continuation to those that emerged from 15-M. It is time to approach the contemporary European left: they aspire to a clear evolution of the political space towards a green, feminist, Atlanticist formation, which makes room for the distribution of work and promotes qualified jobs.

In this new space, there are plenty, ideologically and aesthetically, of some of the forces that compete with Sumar, and only the urgency of the moment and the weakness of its structure have forced it to come together with unwanted partners.. The configuration of the lists has made it clear: there are parties that are not welcome and others that will occupy a very secondary place, largely because they are considered much more part of the past than the future.. Suffice it to point out that Errejón did not want to go with the IU in the 2016 electoral repetition, and now his people have to put up with Podemos and the IU. They are not happy, especially because they think that Iglesias will make the vote for Sumar less.

The two electoral positions

Sumar appeared with a double character, that of an option for the future and that of a rescue ship, and that has generated very different positions within the space. From this gap, from which it cannot be forgotten that it has a marked ideological character, two very different rhythms are born in the face of the elections..

Each party has obvious interests in obtaining the best results where it competes with starting positions, because that is the condition of possibility of what may come, but it cares little for the other constituencies. On the contrary, Yolanda Díaz and her team are doing well on 23-J. Even Más Madrid can take refuge in the capital and the Commons in Catalonia if things do not work out, but a bad general result would be a major blow for the director of the political space.

That is the reason why they want to broaden their electoral base to the maximum, and why they intend not to compete with the PSOE, but to steal all the votes possible in those territories where Sumar is strong.. In Díaz's team, it is believed that their space has a great future, and that it can engage with a broad social sector, and that is why they try to look for friendlier profiles and more socially significant than those of previous leftists.. To a large extent, Sumar is the reunion of the ideological position of the old ICV (Initiative for Green Catalonia), where Urtasun comes from, and of the electoralist vision of regionalism. The confluence of a European green party with the forms, messages and electoral positions that Errejón always defended is what Díaz is trying to build.

However, to achieve this, you need more muscle of your own. The positions that she has located on the lists, of faithful to Díaz and not to other parties, are scarce. That is why there is a dance of last-minute names and Díaz is expanding the number of like-minded people, especially those who are active in other parties, but have shown their commitment to the leadership of Sumar.. The frictions for this reason have even reached his relationship with the Commons.

election night

With this distribution of cards, which marks different political positions and levels of mobilization, it is foreseeable that there will be future tensions in Sumar. If the results are good, the natural thing is that the space that those of Díaz leave to the formations not welcome in the coalition will be reduced. If, on the contrary, they are not enough, the mutual reproaches will multiply from the night of the elections (we must remember what happened on June 26, 2016, the day of the repetition of the general elections that Rajoy won) and life in that parliamentary group will become very complicated. In Sumar they are aware of the double game, the electoral one and the one after 23-J, and they are trying to establish a real structure for the Sumar political party and to consolidate a relevant number of true deputies related to Díaz within the group. Sumar still has many boxes to open in his internal troubles.

On July 17, the beaches of the coast of Cádiz will be bursting. El Palmar, Zahara, Tarifa, Los Caños or Bolonia are names that resonate in the vacation plans of half of Spain. Barbate is not that renowned, but it does have a flagship fishing port where the tuna arrive, which is then eaten at the beach bars on the neighboring beaches at the price of gold.. But not only tuna arrive at Barbate. Anchovies and sardines also arrive. And some come from Moroccan and Saharawi waters, where Spanish (and EU) boats fish thanks to an agreement between Brussels and Rabat that expires on July 17 and whose end has the 98 Spanish boats that have the green light on alert to fish on the other side of the Strait thanks to that entente.

This is not the first time that the end of the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco puts the sector at risk in Canary Islands, Andalusian and Galician ports. When the current agreement was signed in 2013, the Moroccan fishing ground had been closed to European boats for a year and a half. Tomás Pacheco, president of the Barbateña Association of Fishing Entrepreneurs and owner of a vessel that has fished in the waters of the neighboring country in the last two decades, knows it well.. “It is an alternative to the fishing ground in the Gulf of Cádiz,” explains the Barbateño, who says that there are 22 boats from the town of Cádiz that can work in the waters that are part of the agreement, although in recent times they have been going between 7 and 8.

On July 17 they will almost certainly have to return if one takes into account that Brussels is not currently negotiating an extension or the signing of a new fishing pact with Rabat. This is so because the EU Court of Justice ruled that the agreement approved in 2019 was illegal because it included the waters of Western Sahara. And according to community justice, Morocco has no power over the former Spanish colony. The Commission and the member states appealed the decision, but the resolution is not expected until the beginning of next year. “If it comes out in line with the CJEU, we can forget about it,” acknowledges Javier Garat, general secretary of Cepesca, the Spanish Fisheries Confederation, and Europêche, the European employers' association in the industry.

This man from Sanlúcar paints an uncertain panorama. “There will be those who can continue fishing in the Gulf of Cádiz”, adventure. A possibility that is corroborated by Tomás Pacheco, from Barbat, who estimates the number of workers who may be affected only in their locality at 350. The intermediate solution is to activate a series of aids for temporary cessation of the activity, which according to Garat must come from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Luis Planas, has called for an extension of the agreement which, for the moment, seems a long way off.

The MEP of the PP Gabriel Mato, responsible for fishing in his party, abounds in this idea, who details that the aid can only be given if it is considered that the agreement has been broken by force majeure. “We understand that it has been like this,” explains the popular leader, who defends that the impossibility of extending the agreement due to the CJEU ruling is within that casuistry. And in the event that this is not the case, it demands that the central government “not be stingy” and activate support mechanisms for fishermen.

“We don't want help, what we want is to fish,” says Pacheco. This fisherman admits that “if they come, they will be welcome given the bad conditions and the charges we carry”. It refers to the consequence of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the effect it caused on the rise in the diesel oil with which the ships move. Javier Garat adds a more distant memory, the two years of the pandemic in which it was not possible to fish in the area. But now, “with the lower fuel, the Spanish fishing boats were going back to using it,” adds the head of Cepesca.

“It is always necessary, the more possibilities there are to fish, the more options there are,” defends Garat, who adds a relevant nuance. Despite the fact that Spain has the most licenses —93 out of 138— most of the catches are made by large Dutch and Polish fishing vessels in search of anchovies and herring.. In the Spanish case, the distribution is 22 purse seiners, 25 bottom longliners of artisanal fishing in the north; and 10 artisanal fishing vessels, 12 demersal fishing vessels and 23 tuna pole-and-line vessels in the south. The products, in addition to the anchovy and sardines that the people of Cádiz catch, also include hake and pomfret.

The counterpart for Rabat of these permits consists of an income of 50 million euros. “It is the agreement that brings them the most money”, reveals Javier Garat, who details that the funds go to improve port infrastructures and training, among other purposes. But the president of Cepesca aims to be symbolic. “It is a neighboring country, our border with Africa and Strategic in the fight against terrorism… I do not know to what extent these types of issues can be affected by the absence of an agreement,” he ditch.

“Fishermen are also vulnerable and need protection,” says Gabriel Mato, who is critical of certain decisions by the European commissioner for the industry, who, in addition to fishing, also has the environment.. The person in charge of this portfolio is Virginijus Sinkevicius, the same one who has the Junta de Andalucía in check for the irrigation law in the area of Doñana. And Mato's bet is that in the next college of commissioners his powers will be in agriculture to avoid “dictations against the fishing sector” after at times like the pandemic the fishermen made an effort to continue bringing fish to the markets.

I've been carrying a head statistic for years. On Friday, if my data is correct, an all-time record was broken. Because it is national, I also consider it a world record, which adds even more relevance to the accredited brand and to my hard-working and long-standing observation.. I raise the rank of achievement accrediting the supremacy of our country in the discipline analyzed from certain knowledge of comparative counting. Limited to a few countries, it is true, the sampling that my cross-border work has forced me to do allows for some extrapolation and sufficient statistical basis to affirm it.. I have not resisted emphasizing it, although this presumptuous observation could have been avoided, known to all of the long tradition and deep roots that the practice to which I profess such sincere devotion has in our country..

From the joy of finding to the most absolute disappointment mediated an hour and a call. The twenty minutes following the verification of the data – I reviewed it more than three times between nervousness and euphoria – I had to invest in finding the correct telephone number with which to contact and communicate.. The solutions on the Guinness Book of Records website, emails, forms, etc., did not inspire me immediately.. Determined as I was to share the enormous brand as soon as possible with all my peers, I refused to calculate the cost of the six minutes of waiting for an international call that it took me to get a last-generation human voice or trompe l'oeil to answer me.. I bit back a cry of joy when I identified the Latin accent of the fourth or fifth “can i help you?”. And I improved my already deteriorated state of mind at the expectation of more fluid communication as we slipped almost unconsciously into Spanglish forced by my stammering English and the mother tongue of the helpful telephone operator, finally human..

The empathy of the operator, the first few minutes are always good, it appeased some anxiety and allowed the organization of the ideas, the data, the structure of the request that I was carrying out with such enthusiasm. When he abandoned his vocation of service to ratify the denial of my request, I completely renounced Anglo-Saxon words and in a rather pure tone I made him aware of his mistake.. “Look again, miss,” I blurted out at minute 12 of our conversation.. His “no”, in perfect Peruvian, suddenly exposed my phone to its first gliding. Content the launch and prolonged the challenging silence of the well-trained operator, I decided to take on the frustration. Not before, of course, letting my interlocutor know the harshness of my opinion on the current system of registration of trademarks, achievements and records of which they have maintained a monopoly for too long and without competition control.. I shouldn't have broken the record for expletives by abruptly cutting off communication, so I didn't repeat the call. I attribute, for what I relate below, more to human action than to a failure of technology, the causes of the sudden termination.

The argument presented in such a recalcitrant way by “Flor María attends you” was so simple that its forcefulness offended. “That it was not listed in any category,” he told me in a repetitive and idiomatically mixed way.. “Impossible is nothing”, I would answer using advertising jargon, a source of great inspiration in my approaches to Shakespeare's language.. “How is there not going to be a category where you can register a mark of such caliber on labor absenteeism at public administration headquarters?” I blurted out with an altered voice and without a trace of Anglicisms.. “Sorry”, he answered three times. My response, in a more demanding tone, in the sense that I shouldn't feel it and keep looking, found a desperate man back from the Atlantic Ocean: “No, I'm sorry! I don't understand you!! “, again in perfect Peruvian, although this time with a certain accent from when they are touching your eggs.

As a result of my extensive experience with telemarketers of all kinds, especially those of Jazztel, I redirected my strategy towards more constructive and practical positions.. Pulling the catechizing intonation that was embedded in my childish brain and with all the teaching abilities at my disposal, which by the result should not be many, I set out to give a sufficiently convincing explanation..

I began by explaining to him that my future work leads me to the recurring visit of certain administrations. That we define administrations as the set of civil servants —career or interim— and labor personnel —permanent or temporary— hired by a public body and under a complex and advantageous Basic Statute of Public Employment. That we could add to the voluminous body of the Administration a significant number of freely appointed personnel to carry out different responsibilities, among which the figure of the adviser stands out.. The sum is already close to the figure of three million. This army willing to serve the administered performs its work in an unapproachable set of agencies and delegations. The data speaks of ten thousand different administrations. And yes, we only speak in Spain.

I continued reflecting on the patient Flor Mari —I already gained some confidence— that I have not visited all of them, but I have visited a few. That I keep an unconscious count, and due to my unavoidable condition, of the tables occupied every time a problem leads me to faithfulness and the risk of trying to solve it under public supervision, every time a rule is in contradiction, every time the Reading an article remembers scenes from the Marx Brothers… come on, I go a lot. That I reduce the numerical data to percentage to maintain the comparison between the three basic levels that the administration has. That both the national, the regional and the municipal compete closely on the podium of my mind throughout these years with the same courage and professionalism that Fernando Alonso shows. But instead of competing to be faster, they all seem to be competing to continue breaking records for absenteeism..

And I finally explained to him that, for the first time in my life, visiting four consecutive floors in search of the office of an official who was waiting for me —he was hiding from me, I came to think— inside the labyrinth of an organization of major relevance threw a unexpected full. 100% empty chairs, tables with no elbows on, computers focused on saving their screens. Not a single visible human, not a trace of public service, not even a comforting old-fashioned: “Come back tomorrow.”.

I was not able to tell the long-suffering Flor Mari the name of the organism, so I do not see its identification as coherent now.. After all, when I discovered the office, with joy comparable to that felt by illustrious people like Colón or Neil Armstrong, I also realized that there was no one there.. My obligation not to sign with a pseudonym, together with my obligation to return, curtails my ability to report. fear of being struck down. The “come back tomorrow” thing I had no choice but to blurt it out to the mirror.

The Cadiz municipality of Medina Sidonia once again has an IU mayor, José Manuel Ruiz, replacing Fernando Macías, after the three PP councilors unexpectedly broke the tie between the seven PSOE councillors, who won the municipal elections by a difference of 147 votes, and the seven of IU, supporting the latter formation in the investiture plenary session held this Saturday.

The PSOE, which was counting on promoting Juan María Cornejo as mayor as it is the party with the most votes, has assured in a press release that the PP's vote for IU “is an unnatural, dark, opaque pact, where the armchairs have prevailed more , salaries and those released”. The socialists of Medina Sidonia consider that it is “a pact without ideology or principles” and that the right “places the IU candidate in the mayor's office, adulterating the democratic decision expressed at the polls by the people, who never voted for this government option , which favors an IU government with the right of the PP”.

During the plenary session, the PP candidate, María Salazar, who was a spokesperson for Ciudadanos and went over to the PP a few months before the elections, defended her decision on the grounds that Medina had decided that her councilors “would be the arbitrators of this tie”, for which they have opted for the IU candidate for “adjusting more to what the people need”, after having met with the two parties.

The decision, communicated in the plenary session held this Saturday at the municipal theater, was received with boos and whistles among the public and also among people who were waiting outside the building, who rebuked the PP and IU councilors and greeted the PSOE councillor. shouting “mayor, mayor”. The moments of tension between supporters of one and the other did not require the intervention of the local police, who were watching the end of the plenary session.

According to the PSOE, what happened in Medina Sidonia violates a provincial pact with the IU that has allowed various associations and municipalities such as Sanlúcar, Olvera, Chiclana to be divided up, in an agreement that included that the municipality would have a socialist mayor. The provincial secretary of the PSOE, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix, has called it an “unnatural clamp” and has asked the IU councilors to “go back” and the IU provincial leadership to “undo this wrong”..

The heat has officially crept into everyday conversations. The thermometer began to approach 40 degrees in some points of the Andalusian community and in most of the region it has become common to live with 30. An escalation of temperatures that began weeks ago and that forced the Junta a de Andalucía to activate a plan in the classrooms that includes the end of classes at noon if several days are linked with temperatures above 39 degrees.

The solution to avoid the cancellation of school days, beyond the awnings that are being installed in the patios, involves the installation of refrigeration systems that the unions are demanding. But the process is not always as fast as students and parents want, so alternatives must be considered. And in the province of Cádiz, who is offering it is the Civil Guard. Because the institution, with prior judicial authorization, and after an agreement with the regional Administration, is delivering to the educational centers that request it, the air conditioning devices that intervene in drug dealers with indoor marijuana plantations.

The last delivery of refrigeration appliances was made days ago, after agents from the Main Post of Jerez de la Frontera arrested two people for a crop with 2,883 plants that they hid in a protected house in Estella del Marqués that they had occupied while its owner he was away for work.

A spokesman for the Armed Institute explained to El Confidencial that the first time they launched this initiative was in 2019 and that since then “we have done it with practically all the devices that we intervene in.”. “Recently we took a refrigerated truck loaded with hashish that has been left in storage at the food bank,” he adds..

The agent recounts that, “when the boom in indoor plantations broke out, it was a problem beyond police work, because these crops require important refrigeration facilities”. Each action against the marijuana drug dealer involved the seizure of a large number of air conditioners and fans that occupied a large storage space in the facilities of the Armed Institute and in the judicial warehouses and that “ended up rotting.”.

Another problem was the gases that these household appliances accumulate and the risk of contamination represented by their accumulation sine die. Reasons why “we spoke with the judicial depositary, consulted with the Asset Recovery and Management Office (ORGA), and the possibility of delivering them on deposit to educational spaces that might need them was positively valued”. The next step was to make a proposal to the Board and they requested a list of schools that wanted to be recipients of material of this type.. This is available to the Service Operations Center (COS) of the Civil Guard in Cádiz, which contacts them when there is stock..

“We try to deliver the devices to the schools and institutes close to the area where the seizure took place,” explains the aforementioned source, which details that “they have to come and pick it up and all they have to pay for is the installation.”. The delivery is made as a deposit and with the prior authorization of the judge who has coordinated the anti-drug operation. “They are not given as property, but really, it is very difficult for someone to claim them,” he adds..

They are “quite large airs, which are very good for the centers”, because in the south “the heat is pressing”. “So that they are thrown away, piled up and with the forecast that they become scrap metal, that a school take advantage of them”.

Air conditioning units and fans are not the only object of donations from the Civil Guard in the province. Converted into one of the most active areas of drug trafficking in Europe, the successive apprehensions show how drug traffickers constantly change methods to try to hide the caches. And food is one of the favorites. Shipments of fruit, vegetables, meat… that are delivered to food banks to be distributed among the most needy people.

The aforementioned source recalls that the first donation of this type that was made in the province was an exotic product within the local gastronomy: couscous.. In total, 45,000 kilos, including five tons of hashish that were seized in 2011.. “It was a shame to throw it away, and obviously, neither the owner of the couscous, nor the drug dealers, were going to claim it”. Although the shopping list is much broader.

In a place where fishing is an important part of the local economy, poachers are also trying to make a profit.. The apprehensions of the 'anglers', the shellfish baskets, as well as the seizures of tuna, a product that has become the image of Cádiz, are also distributed among organizations of the Third Sector. “We have an agreement with the Petaca Chico trap and it allows us to store perishable food in the refrigerators of its facilities and the College of Veterinarians certifies us, or not, if they are suitable for consumption.” If so, it is donated to soup kitchens “under receipt”. Control, above all.

It is common that, for one reason or another, a person arrives on time for their flight, although there are those who go too far to try not to miss it.. At the Malaga airport, a man who seemed desperate to get on the plane has reached the point of endangering his integrity by jumping into the void from the finger (the access gangway to the aircraft), when it had already been disconnected from the plane.. Another person who was already on board the plane has recorded these images, which have gone viral on Tiktok and other social networks..

The passenger, who was late for boarding this flight to Morocco, forced the door to access the gangway, but when he passed through it, he found that the plane had already moved away from it to start its takeoff maneuvers.. Even so, he did not give up in his efforts to reach the plane, and asked the operators who can be seen in the video to give him a ladder to go down and continue on his way to the aircraft, which was a few meters away.. Faced with the refusal of the workers, who did not believe the unusual attitude of the man, he even jumped into the void with the intention of continuing to advance to the plane..

Although the height to the ground of the track was not too great, in the video we can see that he falls in a bad position on his back and that he must have done a lot of damage. “The fall has hurt for sure, because the electric group cable is hard as a stone,” illustrates a TikTok user in his response. Despite this, the individual gets up and, although he appears to be in pain, he ends up pulling himself together and walking on his own two feet.

Almost got it?

Of course, it is to be assumed that he did not catch his flight after starring in such an incident, despite the fact that he managed to reach its doors and the access stairs were still deployed. And it is that the workers notified the Civil Guard agents, who followed the protocol that exists for this type of situation: they identified the man, and filed a complaint against him for violation of the aviation safety law.

We don't know why it was so important to him to catch that flight, or what mishaps led to his being late, but it's clear that he went a bit too far in his haste to try to get on the plane.

This Saturday the big surprise broke out at the Barcelona City Council: against all odds, the socialist Jaume Collboni has managed to be sworn in as the new mayor of Barcelona. Although it seemed that Xavier Trias (whose Junts candidacy received the most votes) would regain the mayoralty with the support of the ERC, Collboni finally got the baton thanks to some support that seemed incompatible: Ada Colau's commoners, who preferred to support a left-wing candidate, and the PP of Daniel Sirera, who wanted to avoid a pro-independence mayor's office.

In this way, the PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya) once again occupies a mayoralty as important as that of Barcelona twelve years later: after having led the City Council for more than 30 years in a row with four socialist mayors (among them Pasquall Maragall), the last mayor of the PSC in Barcelona had been Jordi Hereu, whose term ended in 2011. Now, Jaume Collboni becomes by surprise the new mayor and heir to that legacy, and also represents an important consolation for the Socialists after the loss of territorial power caused by the results of the 28-M elections.

Of course, Collboni was already a well-known face in Barcelona politics, and has even been part of the municipal government in recent years.

He was already deputy mayor

Jaume Collboni, now 53 years old, has always been heavily involved in politics, joining the PSC in the early 1990s. When he was young, he developed a union and student activism that led him to be general secretary of the Association of Young Students of Catalonia (AJEC) between 1992 and 1995, a time when he was studying Law at the University of Barcelona, studies of which he graduated to become a lawyer by profession.

As a member of the PSC, his first relevant position was that of spokesman for the Barcelona district of Horta-Guinardó between 1995 and 1999. At the same time, he continued to deepen his union career: he was a member of the UGT National Directorate between 1998 and 2005. In addition, between 2001 and 2005 he held the position of counselor in union representation of the Economic and Social Council of Spain..

He has also played an important role in regional politics: he was a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia between 2010 and 2014, during which time he held various positions and even became spokesman for the Socialist Parliamentary Group for a brief period of three and a half months, after end of 2012. It was in 2014 when he decided to focus on local politics, and ran in the primaries to be a candidate for mayor of Barcelona for the PSC. Collboni won those primaries, and in his first elections to the Barcelona City Council, in 2015, his candidacy finished in fifth place and obtained 4 councilors.

Initially, he was in opposition to the commons of Ada Colau, but in 2016 he signed a coalition agreement with them to enter the municipal government. That made Collboni second deputy mayor, and he was in charge of the Business, Culture and Innovation areas. However, the following year, Colau expelled the Socialists from his government due to the support of the PSOE and the PSC for the application of article 155 in Catalonia..

Jaume Collboni and his family returned with more strength to the municipal government of Barcelona during the second term of Ada Colau. In the 2019 elections, Collboni notably improved his results and was third force, with 8 councilors. His new coalition pact with the commons gave him the position of first deputy mayor this time, reflecting his greater strength in the consistory, and he took over the areas of Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance. But that time he did not reach the end of the legislature either, since he himself decided to leave the municipal government and his act as councilor at the beginning of this year 2023 to focus on the electoral campaign: in these last elections his results have improved again, being second force with 10 councilors and finally reaching the mayoralty.

On the other hand, Collboni has also gained importance over the years within his party at an organic level: since 2021 he has been deputy first secretary of the PSC.

“The PP is a state party that works for national integrity from the Government, but also from the opposition”. This is how the national leadership of the PP has justified the turn that has led this Saturday in Barcelona. The four PP votes were essential to invest Jaume Collboni (PSC) against Xavier Trias (Junts). The only condition to make the socialist candidate mayor was that he promised to leave Colau out of the government team. The rectification in extremis of the commons has tipped the balance. Collboni will govern Barcelona, and Trias remains at the gates.

Genoa sources report that last Thursday, the general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, contacted the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán. In the telephone conversation, the PP offered its support to the PSC to take over the mayoralty of Barcelona. There was only one requirement: leave Ada Colau out. The communiqué of the popular does not say anything about this veto extending to the rest of the common team although, a priori, the purple ones renounce a coalition with Collboni.

Genoa exhibits a “sense of State” and justifies that, with the vote in favor of its four councilors, the PP manages to “withdraw from the governance of Barcelona both the Puigdemont party and the rupturist and sovereignist left” that “has done so much damage to the city in recent years”. that's the message. The PP, with four councilors and being the fifth most voted force, has claimed the head of Ada Colau and Xavier Trias. “Today we snatched from the independence movement the possibility of governing the city, and we also managed to withdraw from populism its largest institutional position at the municipal level,” they celebrate..

The popular ones also emphasize the decisive character that Daniel Sirera's councilors will have in the decisions adopted by the Barcelona City Council in the coming years, since Collboni will govern in a minority. Initially, and given the refusal of the PSC to accept its red line with respect to Colau, both Genoa and Sirera opted to vote for themselves in the investiture session, a decision that would have inevitably granted the mayoralty to Xavier Trias, for being the most voted list. But it was a decision to say the least delicate..

In the PP they recognized a certain spirit in Trias, although overshadowed by his “secessionist” environment. Internal suspicions began to grow as the possibility of facilitating the investiture of the Junts candidate was getting closer. The president of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, amended the criteria that Genoa had defended until now and warned on social networks hours before the plenary session that the PP could not be an accomplice to “Waterloo ruling Barcelona”. The step back from the commons ended up tipping the balance. In fact, in the statement from the PP leadership they refer to Trias at all times as “Carles Puigdemont's party”.

After the municipal elections on May 28, the next scheduled date on the calendar was this Saturday. The day on which, with few exceptions, the more than 8,000 town halls in Spain are constituted.

In just over 2,800 municipalities, the Popular Party achieved an absolute majority. Among its main squares are Madrid, Malaga, Murcia or Córdoba. The PSOE, for its part, reaped the same success in nearly 2,000 towns, including Vigo, Sabadell and Fuenlabrada..

But 28-M left governance in the air in 103 municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, where more than 15 million people reside. There, the absence of absolute majorities has made it necessary to confirm agreements between different formations. Only in Utrera (Seville) did the PP get rid of the negotiations when it was discovered that there had been an error in the counting of the votes, which gave the mayor of the PP guarantees to be able to be sworn in without agreeing.

In the following table you can consult which party will hold the mayoralty in the 153 main cities of the country and with whom each government has agreed, according to the information available.

With the consolidated pacts, the shift of municipal power towards the Popular Party is confirmed. In addition to the change of color in the mayors compared to 2019, the pacts between PP and Vox have wrested cities such as Valladolid, Elche or Alcalá de Henares from the PSOE, since, despite being the most voted force, the right-wing parties had a majority absolute.

Also conversely, the sum of the left has stolen the mayoralty from the popular in A Coruña, Alcorcón, Santiago de Compostela, Lugo, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Pontevedra, Sanlúcar de Barrameda or Torrelavega, where they had won on 28-M. The big surprise of the day took place in Barcelona. The socialist candidate, Jaume Collboni, has snatched the mayorship from Xavier Trias (Junts) at the last minute, with the support of Barcelonaen Comú and the Popular Party.

The 28-M elections have left a scenario of debacle in the PSOE while the PP has been supported and Vox has expanded its territorial map. From the ultra-right formation they affirm that they will touch power in about 140 municipalities, in 26 of which they achieved an absolute majority. Among the main cities, those of Abascal have agreed with the Popular Party to enter the government, in addition to the aforementioned towns, in Castellón, Burgos, Albacete or Torrent.

One minute exceeded the stipulated time, when Francisco de la Torre walked the few meters that separated him from the Plenary Hall. In front of him, a wall of photographers and television cameras; and to your right, the wall on which hang the portraits of all the mayors of Malaga. In it there is a hole that seems reserved for her figure. Together with the last socialist councilor of the city, Pedro Aparicio (1979-1995), and under his replacement in office, Celia Villalobos (1995-2000). A painting that, at least, will have to wait another four years to be painted. Because the veteran leader of the PP, twenty-three years in charge of the city's management, a key figure in its transformation, began his seventh and “probable” last term this Saturday. A 'ultimate ball' that starts with rocanrol because this week it will be unveiled if the capital of Malaga will host Expo 2027.

This designation would mean the satisfaction of a desire of the record mayor of the PP. Malaga “is in a successful present,” said the councilor in his investiture speech, in which he avoided falling into complacency and stated that they will work to make it “one of the most attractive centers in the country, in an area whose economic dynamism will generate quality employment”.

“We have hatched and now we are heading towards an even more promising future” which the government team thinks involves continuing to promote the international projection of the city. Expo 2027, which is aspired to with a sustainability project in the urban era, is key to this strategy. And next Wednesday the organization of an event that Bloomington, Bariloche, Belgrade and Phuket will also aspire to will be decided in Paris. The choice of the Spanish candidacy would not only be a transforming factor for Malaga, but also the farewell dreamed of by the councilor to his long political career.

But, although expectations are high, it would not be the first time that the city has been disappointed in its desire to project itself through a great event. Attempts to achieve the European Cultural Capital, the European Medicines Agency or the Sailing America's Cup failed, so Francisco de la Torre protected himself from a possible new setback and compromised the development of the projects announced in education, public housing, entrepreneurship and innovation.

“With Expo or without it, the Malaga brand already transcends Andalusia and Spain, sounds at a European level and has global repercussions. In the coming years, this importance will be even more intense”, insisted the mayor, who stressed that the city “is experiencing the beginning of a new stage that will be splendid”.

De la Torre drew a city far from the problems that the opposition leaders exposed, highlighting the achievements that “would have seemed absolutely impossible to us 25 years ago and glossing the initiatives of a program “without coups, decoys or shortcuts”, for a term in which he announced that he will continue to claim the “pending financing” and “compensation for the loss of capital gains”. “Whoever governs governs,” he said.

The mayor, in a corporation with a presence of ideological extremes, wanted to lay the foundations for relations between acronyms and encouraged disagreement, “but as rivals, not as enemies”. “Let's set an example for our constituents, who have put us here to work for them, not so that we can throw more wood on the bonfire of polarization,” he told the councilors of the PSOE, Con Málaga and Vox and after appealing to the spirit of the Transition quoting some words from the columnist of El Confidencial Ignacio Varela: “Its meaning will increase with the passing of the decades because its dimension is extraordinary. It was the Spanish peace treaty”.

The spokespersons of the different formations, as a general rule, seemed to sense the desire of the councilor and developed institutional discourses. Although the reproaches and warnings were not lacking. Toni Morillas, from Con Málaga, who was asked by the municipal secretary on several occasions during the oath if she complied with the Constitution, challenged the two Vox councilors with her eyes on several occasions when she said that they would fight against “hate politics”; while the candidate of the green formation, Antonio Alcázar, responded that “many have tried to label us and stigmatize us to exclude us from the political spectrum, but now we are in the institutions”. The socialist leader Daniel Pérez, about whom there were great expectations in the regional and national executives of his party, and who was one of the great disappointments in the past municipal elections, rescued the campaign 'claim' about the supposed “housing drama” that lives in the city and asked the mayor “not to fall into the temptation of trying to use the 49% of the votes he has had to govern against the other half of the citizens of Malaga who have not voted for him”.

Elisa Pérez de Siles, popular spokesperson, and person who has gained more weight within the government team compared to the previous term, was in charge of answering the reproaches. With good manners, and even a smile, he asked the opposition if they wanted Ada Colau's model for Malaga and censured his “apocalyptic image” of the city. And he allowed himself to challenge the left to work as Francisco de la Torre does: “Do you want to beat him? Well, they have to earn it by working. I challenge them to do it and I wish them luck.”.