Will Xavier García Albiol be mayor of the Catalan city of Badalona - again - next Tuesday? There is no definitive response to this question today. It depends on who is answering it, and, if that person is a politician, the interests they serve. But the one thing that is certain is that, since the municipal elections last May, in which the ignoble leader of the People's Party (PP) in Catalonia won a victory as overwhelming as it was insufficient, he has never been so close to regaining the mayoral staff he lost in 2015. Albiol is not mayor and perhaps he won't be again, but he does conserve the pole position when there are four days to go until the city votes for a municipal leader next Tuesday 12th.
If there was one thing that was completely impossible, it was for Albiol to become mayor again, at least during this electoral cycle, which ends in 2023. The PP's 11 councillors out of 27 made it impossible to hold a no-confidence motion with the list of another former mayor, Dolors Sabater, and her electoral coalition of left-wing forces. Only a major political earthquake could make the Socialists (PSC), the city's third force, lose the mayoralty. And this impossible situation had led to a rift in the coalition as there was no possibility of it recovering power. But the earthquake happened on April 22nd, when the mayor of Badalona, Álex Pastor, left his house during lockdown and went to Barcelona, where he would be arrested by the Mossos d'Esquadra in a significantly inebriated state and after biting a policaman. A few hours later he resigned as mayor.
And thus the situation was rewound to the starting position of last May but in more favourable conditions for Albiol. Dolors Sabater's bloc cannot hand the mayoralty to the Socialists again as it would make very little sense, and it would be difficult for them to justify doing so without paying a price. The PSC clings to municipal power and is playing the game until the end, waiting for Sabater’s coalition to give in: if they did so once, why not again? Probably, the Socialists are also thinking that, with the economic crisis on the horizon, it may even be good for them that Albiol should have to do all the dirty work. In politics, as in football, as we know, everyone has their own recipe for winning.
And while the hours go by and Albiol prays for the disagreement between his rivals to continue, in Badalona everything consists of gambles. And interests, obviously. Not for nothing is it the fourth largest city in Catalonia.