On Saturday, January 13, when Ada Colau announced that she was staying in the Barcelona City Council despite being in the opposition having been mayor for eight years, the city's political board shook.
In the City Council, the permanence of the leader of the commons makes it difficult for a left-wing tripartite pact, led by the socialist mayor, Jaume Collboni, and ERC.
Internally within the space of the commons itself, the decision of its leader blocks her succession.
This Friday Barcelona en comú celebrates the first plenary session of the year and the strategy to follow at the City Council is on the agenda.
Part of the party's bases assume that it will not be governed with the PSC, although it is unknown if there will be a change of cards in an eventual approval of the Generalitat's budgets and if Barcelona would enter the equation.
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Ada Colau reveals her political future: “I will stay at the Barcelona City Council”
Almost a month after Colau's announcement, talks between Collboni and the Republicans to govern together are advancing, while they are stalled with the commons.
This Tuesday, ERC spokesperson, Jordi Castellana, asked for “discretion” regarding the progress of the talks.
The ERC bases do not want their party to be integrated into a government in which the former mayor is also present, as was evident during the assemblies of the
city's Republican
caucuses .
Party sources assure that even the current leader of ERC in the council, Elisenda Alamany, does not want to enter the Government with Collboni if Colau is there.
The relationship between the two has been bad since Alamany, who was active in the ranks of the Commons, was signed by Republican Ernest Maragall in 2019. ERC won the Commons by a few votes.
In the PSC, the scenario of Governing with the mayor, the same political figure with whom they governed as minority partners in the last two terms, is uncomfortable.
Collboni does not want such a heavyweight sharing an executive.
Collboni postponed the traditional conference of the mayor of Barcelona at the College of Journalists at the end of January.
He could not say what model of city he wants when it remains unknown who he will agree with.
The conversations were very advanced with Junts, even talking about the distribution of areas and positions, but Xavier Trias stopped them after it became public that Collboni was meeting with ERC and Comuns.
In those days of the third week of January Colau even declared that the tripartite was “imminent” and that she did not rule out being the first deputy mayor.
The conference was postponed to February 29, delaying the pact.
This Tuesday, during an interview, Colau continued to support the tripartite, assured that his figure “is not a problem” to govern with Collboni and recalled several times that he was invested thanks to his votes.
He also stated that there are “city elites” who pressure so that the common people do not govern again.
Party leadership succession postponed
Indoors in Barcelona in common, Colau's announcement that he was staying was received with silence.
In some chats, the inmates, who usually respond with enthusiasm to their leader's interventions, on the day of the announcement the response was timid.
His permanence in Barcelona's institutional life postpones his succession.
No one in the party disputes the founder's leadership and political power, but until she leaves her side, nothing moves.
She made her decision alone, several sources say, it was not debated in the formal bodies of the party, and she communicated it to the Municipal Group at a dinner the night before making it public.
The executive assures that the decision was debated and communicated.
For months, asking about her future was taboo, other party sources say.
She could have been a minister or an MEP, Colau often remembers.
But she remains, she said, without clarifying whether the entire mandate.
Even she did not rule out four more years after 2027. Colau did not participate in the last coordinator of the party, the second body after the executive.
The person who intervened was the councilor and former deputy mayor Janet Sanz.
For some time now, there has been some discomfort at the grassroots level about how decisions that affect day-to-day life or more important issues are made.
Plenary sessions are convened, but the key issues are not discussed collectively, there is no debate or a long-term strategy is planned, two training sources agree.
It happened in 2019 with the list for the municipal elections.
On the eve of the general elections last summer, at the headquarters on Marina Street there was a high-voltage afternoon for the list.
In 24 hours, it was made public that Jaume Asens would head it, there was a huge uproar, he resigned... In the end, positions three, four and five were occupied by three figures from Colau's direct environment (professionally and personally), of which two, Gala Pin and Eloi Badia had announced that they were leaving politics.
Colau's permanence affects the game.
There is no alternative leadership.
If someone aspired to have a leading role in the City Council, they will have to wait.
The commons also have the anomaly that they are a space where the original brand is that of Barcelona and not the Catalan or Spanish one.
For this reason, the former mayor also determines the future of Catalonia as a community, which she also leads together with Jessica Albiach and Candela López.
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