Ada Colau is now history. Welcome, Xavier Trias. These two sentences sum up an historic election day in Barcelona in which the Catalan capital's council experienced a total turnaround, ending a black period of eight years in which the city became smaller and the problems of the people of Barcelona steadily bigger with Colau at the head of the municipal government. She began badly in 2015, riding the wave of a disgraceful campaign against Trias that she fueled by spreading false accusations of bank accounts in Switzerland. She retained the leadership in 2019, after losing to Ernest Maragall and manoeuvring with the so-called Upper Diagonal interests that had a candidate like Manuel Valls ready to do the dirty work and invert his position - from the guarantor of opposition to the Barcelona en Comú mayor, to giving her the votes she needed. It was urgent for Colau to lose and to put an end to Barcelona's decline, and the people of Barcelona understood that at the polls.
The victory of Xavier Trias has multiple readings and shows how much people wanted a candidate who made common sense his main foundation. Trias ran a campaign in the old fashioned way and in conditions that were not easy: with the vast majority of the media against him - some because he was too close to Puigdemont and others because he was not close enough - with his party, Together for Catalonia (Junts), distracted, muddied in the Laura Borràs case and the candidate stealing minutes of television time and presenting himself as a Convergent with all the pros and cons that this entails. His victory by more than 17,000 votes and 2.6 percentage points over the second place getter is incontestable. Manoeuvres should not be attempted to oust him from the mayor's office even though the majority of PSC-Comuns with ERC is possible. But it would be a shameless spectacle for Oriol Junqueras's Republicans to participate in a political manoeuvre of this type and even more so after the result that ERC achieved on an election night that, to say the least, can be considered rather poor. In any case, this discussion will begin on Monday.
A further consideration regarding Junts: the mayors or candidates who have improved their results have been those who most defend the culture of government, seriousness and pragmatism, such as Marc Castells in Igualada, Meritxell Roigé in Tortosa, Xavier Fonollosa in Martorell, Josep Maria Vallès in Sant Cugat and Laura Martínez in Vilassar de Mar. On the other hand, the disaster has been absolute in Girona, with ex-Catalan minister Gemma Geis left in the dust as the PSC rocketed past. Or in Tarragona, with Jordi Sendra in fifth place and overtaken by both the PP and Vox. On a symbolic level, Junts's organizing secretary, David Torrents, a Borràs supporter who was defending a single council seat in Badalona, the fourth largest city in Catalonia, and lost that seat after not reaching the 5% minimum. Leaving Barcelona aside, Junts has no councillors in Catalonia's second largest city, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. And, in the third, Terrassa, it has only two. Thus, it is very difficult to be the central party in Catalonia. Some people need to take some lessons from all this and not hide behind Trias's personal success if they want to get the party out of the current situation.
The great success of these elections in Catalonia is, without a doubt, that of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which obtained comfortable results in Tarragona, Lleida and Girona that will surely give it the three mayoralties. It strengthens its result in the Barcelona metropolitan belt and, amid the PSOE's poor results in Spain, the Catalan Socialists, led by Salvador Illa, have become a stronghold for Pedro Sánchez. The PSC also shows that its victory in the last Catalan elections was not a flash in the pan and that ERC and Junts are very far from being able to catch it in the next Catalan elections. The Republicans will be able to claim that they have won in numbers of councillors in Catalonia, but the PSC has won in votes with Junts second.
The Republican Left (ERC) has been left with poor results. There can be no excuses. This has been recognized by Junqueras himself. Their policy of "expanding the base" of their support in the metropolitan area has ended up as a broken mirror, since the distance between them and the PSC has widened in most municipalities and it has been confirmed that the only vote transfer in these cities is between Junts and ERC. No other movements. The biggest failure due to the expectations that the party had placed with him, is that of Gabriel Rufián who only improved one councillor in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, going from three to four, and not being able to avoid the absolute majority of the Socialist Núria Parlon who even increased her dominance.
The People's Party (PP) has obtained an absolute majority in Badalona at the hands of Xavier García Albiol, who, on this occasion, will not have to wait for deals to be made. His victory is resounding, as he gets 18 councillors, four more than the absolute majority. The PP also improves in Barcelona, where Daniel Sirera doubles the party's representation, from two to four, a tonic that is repeated in many cities. Alongside the PP's results, the entry of Vox reflects a stubborn but unquestionable reality: the extreme right exists and, in view of the municipal elections, it has a solid base for the Spanish elections in December. The PSC also has one after the local elections this Sunday. It remains to be seen if ERC and Junts can do their homework or present themselves at such momentous elections naked and without options.