There is no satisfactory election for the PP in the Barcelona City Council, today. To prevent Xavier Trias (Junts) from being mayor of Barcelona, the four popular councilors have to vote in favor of Jaume Collboni (PSC) and his coalition with the commons of Ada Colau and with ERC. And neither option satisfies the local PP leader, Daniel Sirera, at all.. That is why it is trying a more than unlikely third way in which the PSC agrees with the PP and renounces its priority partners. And that they, in return, continue to support him. Or in which the Socialists join forces with the independentistas from the orbit of Carles Puigdemont.
Junts removed 11 councilors; the PSC, 10; Colau's party, 9; CKD, 5; the PP, 4; and Vox, 2. The absolute majority are 21 councilors. Today, and given Collboni's refusal to agree to Sirera's proposal, the Barcelona PP is more inclined to vote for itself as an apparently innocuous solution. But it wouldn't be. Neither innocuous nor Solomonic. Because if the four popular votes go to Sirera and, therefore, no one obtains an absolute majority, the mayor of Barcelona would automatically be the one with the most voted list. In other words, Trias, who has his own marked accent within his party, but also enjoys a close relationship with Puigdemont.
“Guatemala or 'Guatepeor'”
Within the PP, the fear has grown that his party will be blamed for the separatists taking over the mayoralty of the second most important city in Spain. Three leaders of the main opposition party agree that “between the bad and the worst”, you have to choose “the least bad”.. They refer to the PSC. And in the Basque PP, a charge with three years against nationalism uses a similar simile: “Between Guatemala or Guatepeor, Guatemala, what remedy, no?”
A senior national official adds that the correct decision would be to support the PSC, but “if it gives up something”. “This should be a matter of state,” says a baron. In other words, transcend the local debate. Does this mean that, at a given moment, Feijóo could give the instruction not to do anything that benefits the independence movement. But the president of the PP has given Sirera free rein to negotiate. “The Collboni and Colau ticket is a ticket that the majority of the citizens of Barcelona do not accept, and in this context, I am sure that Mr. Sirera will make me a proposal,” he said on Tuesday.
Most of the ten leaders and veterans of the PP consulted agree that it is a “danger” not to raise a sanitary cordon against Junts, but they also agree – this time, unanimously – that it is a dilemma with a very difficult solution. Because? Because if the PP makes it easier for Trias to govern Barcelona, it will do so in a minority and handcuffed. I would have to agree everything with the PSC or with various parties. While if the PP supports the PSC and it agrees with ERC and Colau, an immovable majority block would be consummated, for the entire legislature. And also with independence influence.
Other PP positions clearly support Sirera. “We are not going to do like Manuel Valls again,” sums up a veteran senator. “The responsibility does not lie with the PP, it belongs to Collboni, who is in a Frankenstein pact with Junts, so they, Trias and Collboni would have to understand each other,” he adds.. “If he has decided to go there, it is because it is the least bad thing,” adds a popular regional president. “We trust him 100%,” he adds.
“In the Basque Country we have given investitures to the PSOE in exchange for nothing”, they recall in the PP of this community, although they clarify that in no case Trias -a moderate within Junts- is the same as Bildu.