Barcelona's acting mayor Ada Colau has made it clear that she will accept being returned to the post with the votes of Manuel Valls. In an interview with La Sexta television's El Objetivo this Sunday night, Colau has reaffirmed that her desire is to form a tripartite government with ERC and the PSC, but after the "mutual vetos" of these two parties - opposed on the independence issue - she considers that her responsibility is to present herself in the crucial council investiture vote to choose the new mayor. "All votes in my favour are welcome," she said.
Colau affirmed she would not feel uncomfortable if she was made mayor thanks to Valls, candidate backed by the right-wing Ciudadanos party in the May 26th election, because she says she will never enter into any pact with him. "We haven't made any agreement or spoken to Valls. All the agreements on forming a council will be with parties of the left both before and after the investiture vote. I have to respond through my actions," she argued.
The acting mayor said that she has only exchanged a single message with Valls, in which the former French prime minister informed her that she would have his vote at the investiture. "I thanked him but I told him that I would only speak with ERC and the PSC." In addition, she affirmed that the decision to submit herself to the mayoral vote was not the result of this public announcement by Valls, but rather because it was her "responsibility" after the failure of the tripartite negotiation.
In this regard, Colau criticized the parties led by Collboni and Maragall for vetoing each other and being inflexible. "People from ERC and the PSC tell us privately that things can't continue like this. But we don't have to accept it, we have to put the city first. If they veto each other, we have to take a step forward and present ourselves for the investiture," she said.
Manuel Valls, a fierce opponent of the Catalan independence movement, announced he would back Colau's left-wing Barcelona en Comú party in order to prevent the mayoral post going to Ernest Maragall, whose centre-left pro-independence ERC candidacy finished first in the May 26th election.