,Mayor Ada Colau and her team will enter 2022 on a relatively good note. After getting the budget and taxes approved in the last council meeting of the year, as well as dealing with important subjects such as the consolidation of the additional outdoor seating for cafés and restaurants due to the pandemic, this Monday the results of the local poll were presented and they are positive for the interests of En ComúMayor Ada Colau and her team will enter 2022 on a relatively good note. After getting the budget and taxes approved in the last council meeting of the year, as well as dealing with important subjects such as the consolidation of the additional outdoor seating for cafés and restaurants due to the pandemic, this Monday the results of the local poll were presented and they are positive for the interests of En Comú, and not so good for the mayor: the party would come first in the elections 4.6 points ahead of ERC, with double the support of the PSC (7.4%), but Colau continues to be badly rated by Barcelona's citizens, only scoring 4.2 out of 10, half a point lower than this summer. Her team attributes it to the "polarisation" of opinions around her.
"En Comú would win the elections and for the first time in recent years the tie with ERC is broken," celebrated government spokesman, Jordi Martí, who also stressed that the three best placed forces in the barometer are on the left: Barcelona en Comú (14.8%) – its best poll since 2019,. ERC (10.2%) and PSC (7.4%).
The fourth force in the city would be JxCat, with 3.6% of the vote, halving the support it had in summer, followed by CUP (2.6%), which now has no representation in the city, PP (1.8%), Vox (1.2%), which currently has no representation, Ciutadans (1%) and Barcelona pel Canvi (0.1%).
The best valued leader is the republican Ernest Maragall, who with a 5.2, is the only one who passes, but also the socialist Jaume Collboni (4.7), Eva Parera (4.5) in her first poll after Manuel Valls's departure, and Elsa Artadi (4.4), of JxCat, are all rated better Colau in score. The leader of Cs, Luz Guilarte, gets a 4, and Josep Bou (PP) a 3.1
Badly rated municipal management
Almost half of those interviewed consider that the management of the City Council is bad or very bad (49.4%), a percentage that increases in ten points with respect to the summer. On the other hand, the number of Barcelonians who believe it is good or very good has dropped to 37.4%.
ERC's municipal group, which came top in the last poll, has already remarked that En Comú did not do as well as they say. They highlight data such as the percentage of residents who believe municipal management is very bad and Colau's bad individual rating. "The poll clearly shows people's discomfort with the current government. This malaise translates into negative assessments and pessimism, which is not so much explained by the economic situation, but by the government's disconnection and the lack of a project for the future of the city," they explain.
The Generalitat does not fare much better in the exam: 48.8% of respondents see its management as bad or very bad. The State does even worse, with 51.7% of respondents very critical. The 802 interviews with people entitled to vote that made up the poll were made just before the December bank holiday weekend, when the Omicron variant was just appearing, which according to those responsible for the survey may explain some of the pessimism collected in the assessments.
Cleanliness as a problem
Insecurity is once again Barcelonians' main concern, a point that the government assures is "surprising" because delinquency data have been falling, yet paradoxically it has grown almost six points in relation to the June survey. This problem also continues to be important for 20.8% of respondents, a percentage similar to the end of 2018. Cleanliness now bursts into second position, which, according to Martí, is because lately there has been "a lot of talk" about the issue. If in summer it was the main concern for 6.5% of respondents now it is already for almost twice as many (11.9%).
The third problem is the difficulty in accessing housing (6.5%), which has long been a major concern thrown up by the poll. The municipal political management, which in the previous poll had climbed to second place on the table, is now in fourth place (5.6%) behind housing problems and closely followed by unemployment and working conditions (5.5%).
Three out of four Barcelonians, in favour of reducing the number of cars
In the section of questions on different topics that are included in the barometer this time the respondents have been asked about climate change and the measures implemented in Barcelona to deal with it. 57.9% advocate building more bike lanes, a very similar percentage to last year, and 76% believe that more pedestrian spaces should be freed up, but this percentage is almost two points lower than last year. Those who want to promote public transport, which is the measure with the greatest consensus, remain at 95%, and 74% say that the circulation of motorised vehicles should be reduced.
Council spokesman Jordi Martí claimed the population backed the measures being taken to reduce traffic, after 57.4% of those surveyed said they are rather in favour of the council's actions, while 37.2% do not see them as a good thing. In fact, 47% believe that the measures being tried are adequate but insufficient and 9.7% considered them to be excessive.
