Ada Colau's most difficult campaign: squats, tourist flats and adjusted surveys

This 28-M, Ada Colu faces his most difficult campaign. The polls, although many give him victory, indicate that the PSC is on his heels. Xavier Trias also has options to be the most voted on election night. The controversial Bonanova squat, with the Desokupa company haranguing a demonstration against the anti-system, but also against the mayoress, has capitalized on the start of the Barcelona campaign. Colau has been in the spotlight for his tolerance of the squatter movement, as PP, Cs and Vox have reproached him, as well as Junts. It was not a night of pasting posters to the use that was lived in the city of Barcelona this Thursday, with the focus of the media pointing to a square in the upper area of Barcelona armored by the Mossos. It is going to be a highly contested contest and the commoners know it.

The fronts that are open to Colau are many. Precisely, one of the great flags that he has defended in his two legislatures has been questioned in recent days, the zero tolerance policy with tourist apartments. The Consistory, as El Periódico advanced, has been forced to grant licenses to several owners after taking advantage of a legal loophole.

Paradoxically, the CIS survey, which showed that Colau would be the most voted and would get between 12 and 13 councillors, although with the PSC hot on their heels (Jaume Collboni would get 10-12 seats), is more optimistic than that of the commons themselves.. A survey distributed this Wednesday among BeC activists said that Colau beat Trias by 4 tenths (21.8 vs. 21.4%), followed by the PSC (19.8%) and ERC (10.4%).. “Polls serve to see trends and the trend for a few days is more than clear: these elections can go to very few votes,” the Barcelona formation warned its militants.

Common sources told El Confidencial that “people realize that a good job has been done in the city. Obviously, there is criticism against some initiatives, but there is no doubt that today Barcelona is a more bearable city for citizens than before”. These sources point out that Barcelona en Comú is one of the formations that has the most loyalty to its electorate but they also trust that Colau “has a lot of hidden vote. There are people who do not publicly admit what they vote for whatever, but that is a circumstance that must be taken into account when assessing the intention to vote”.

the ghosts appear

In the case of the squatters, some of the ghosts of her past appear to Ada Colau (or rather the opposition insists on reminding her).. In the first debate of the main candidates, 24 hours before the actual electoral campaign began, the opposition blamed him for his traditional support for the squatters. It is a message that they have been repeating for weeks and that has been intensified since the beginning of May as a result of the serious conflicts and clashes that took place between the squatter collective and the residents of Plaza Bonanova, where some twenty anti-establishment activists have entrenched themselves in two houses from which they want to be evicted.

The videos of the altercations and the images of squatters armed with sticks and axes, wearing ski masks or motorcycle helmets, running after neighbors add a plus of morbidity to the story, which some groups take advantage of to magnify on election eves. The parallelism that the opposition makes between commons and squatters is not new or imaginary, the formation maintains that the squatter phenomenon is due to the capitalist system itself and that its roots lie in land speculation. In addition, no one escapes the kindness that the Colau City Council applies to radical groups and anti-system platforms that swarm the city.

The opposition now blames Colau for having once again turned Barcelona into the squatter capital of Europe, but the leader can also make a profit. How?: Elaborating his message starting, precisely, from the squatting phenomenon. “Squatting in Barcelona has dropped and in part it will be due to the housing policies that have been implemented in the city,” Colau said before his rivals in the first debate. In addition, he took the opportunity to blame opposition groups, especially Ciudadanos, Valents and the PP, who align themselves “with a small group called Desokupa, which has been acting outside the law for a long time, which has contacts with the extreme right and that takes advantage of these cases to make itself known. It seems to me a shame that this is seconded”, attacked the mayoress. There it coincides point by point with the criticisms expressed by radical and anti-system groups against the Desokupa company through social networks.. It is a risky, but consistent position: Colau does not clearly distance himself from the phenomenon and focuses on the nature of his traditional enemies, the squatters.

Colau's counteroffensive

But there is more: Colau, in the face of the adversity of the circumstances, sticks out his chest. In his program he includes and affirms that during his 8 years in office he has managed to create the “largest public housing park in Spain”. The numbers reported by the Comunes support this statement: in these two terms, the number of public flats was increased by 4,000, bringing Barcelona's public housing stock to 1,500 flats. Those 4,000 floors, according to the commons, were achieved “with various strategies. On the one hand, the purchase of entire buildings (almost 50), which adds up to 1,600 flats (which cost 180 million), while the construction of new flats and the acquisition of private flats for social rent adds up to the remaining 2,400 flats”. Thus, now it promises to deliver 5,000 public flats in the next 4 years, of which 1,500 will be for young people, 1,000 for the elderly and 1,000 under the cooperative regime in assignment of use. It also hopes to buy 1,600 more flats in entire buildings..

To alleviate the lack of housing, Colau promises for the next legislature that he will force “developers to build housing instead of keeping the plots in disuse and limit the construction of private swimming pools in the face of the drought situation”. Among other measures of the commons, they also highlight the intention to increase “the municipal capital gains tax on the purchase and sale of entire buildings that occur during the first 8 years. At the same time, the IBI will be modified to penalize the residential rental of housing and, instead, rents below the reference price will be subsidized”.

The other ingredient that has put Colau's housing policy under the spotlight is the cascade of rulings that force the City Council to reverse course and recognize hundreds of homes for tourist apartment licenses. It began with a first sentence that recognized the right of Inmobiliaria Gallardo to obtain the 120 licenses that it had requested in 2019 and this week half a dozen more sentences have appeared that agree with companies or individuals who had denounced for the same reasons as the company.

Ada Colau, then, faces her toughest campaign of the three elections she has run for. Never before had any of them started out so rough and with so many conflicts on the table..