Gerardo Pisarello: "Candidacies similar to mine, like Mamdani's, are gaining ground."

BarcelonaGerardo Pisarello (Tucumán, 1970) He is running in the Barcelona En Comú primaries to replace Ada Colau as mayoral candidate in 2027. He is currently a member of Congress and hopes to defeat his rival. Bob PopHe was the former mayor's right-hand man at City Hall between 2015 and 2019.

He's running against Bob Pop for the mayoral nomination. What do you think makes you a better candidate?

— I present myself with the experience of having been part of a government whose transformative vocation emerged from the squares back in 2015 and of having been in Madrid and having built many alliances with people from other political forces in the State.

Can it be presented as a renewal option?

— I'm not someone who has become bureaucratic or locked away in the institution; quite the opposite. I like to do politics outside the institution, which is where I believe things happen.

Does having governed the city for eight years already remain sufficient to send a message of change?

— I'm proud of what the city councils of the past have accomplished and what we've promoted in terms of housing and strengthening municipal public services. All of this needs to grow. And we obviously have new challenges, such as immigration and protecting our language.

Does the emergence of movements like the Rental Companies Union confirm the limitations of the institution?

— Partly, yes. There are limits to what the institution can do because power resides elsewhere. Economic, financial, media power... It hasn't been easy to limit the power of powerful lobbies., because the socialist party itself has historically been accustomed to having very close relationships with these economic powers, and because we have not had enough strength in the streets to build a counterweight.

Why do you think it is primarily the far right that capitalizes on this discontent?

— The far right is trying to redirect this societal discontent away from the privileged who concentrate wealth and instead pit the vulnerable against each other. The left also bears some responsibility, as we are absent from these neighborhoods. That's why, in my case, it was so important to choose Carol Recio as my running mate; she was born in Nou Barris and comes from a family of activists.

Bob Pop says that Ada Colau in 2015 would vote for him.

— I've never been part of any establishment. I come from a very humble family, the son of a rural schoolteacher and a modest lawyer who was murdered during the Argentine dictatorship. I've always been an activist, and I still am. I believe that 2027 can also be the expression of a municipalist spring across the country, connecting with new movements against the reactionary wave.

Is he a transitional candidate after Colau's hyper-leadership?

— Colau was a leader recognized by the working class. It's not hyper-leadership, it's good and necessary leadership. This isn't incompatible with being able to propose something new. Barcelona has never had a mayor of foreign origin, a defender of the language, and a friend of the republican movements of the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. My own trajectory could be interesting in a world where similar candidacies, like Mamdani's in New York, are also gaining ground.

The polls don't show them as favorites.

— I'm running because I believe we can win the election. In 2027, it will become abundantly clear that to stop the reactionary wave of the far right and the powerful economic interests at play, a Joe Biden or a Kamala Harris alone is not enough. We will need bolder candidates. That's why I support the Broad Front.

Are there talks underway for that broad front in the Barcelona area?

— We always talk. We run into each other on the street all the time.

The relationship with ERC in the City Council is not the best.

— What the people who vote for us are asking for is that we go forward as united as possible, and that we understand each other as much as possible.

It does not include the PSC in that front, but it is difficult to govern without it.

— When we held the mayoralty, we could more easily sway the PSC towards bolder positions. It's as if the Socialist Party has two souls: one of a party of the establishment, accustomed to a two-party system, and the other of when we managed to shake it up.

Was investing in Collboni a mistake?

— Invest Xavier Trias who represents the Thatcherism It couldn't be an alternative. However, we need the left-wing forces with a transformative, republican vocation to have enough strength in the next elections so that extraneous elements, like the vote of someone like Valls, don't play a role in the formation of the government.

?Would they govern with the PSC if they don't come in first?

— I'm running to defeat the PSC, so that the republican and transformative left has enough strength to form a courageous government. A kind of courage that I don't see in Jaume Collboni today.

If he becomes mayor, how will the residents notice?

— We will do everything in our power to ensure that strengthening public services offsets the decline in wages. This includes limiting housing prices, promoting public supermarkets, and making the subway free by 2030.

Can this be done by the City Council?

— With Mercabarna, we could have small public supermarkets in each district with price controls, making groceries affordable for families. Many cities are already implementing this.

And is it sustainable to make the subway free?

— It's happened in Montpellier, in Mallorca... It can be done gradually; I'm not proposing it as something that will happen overnight. Obviously, this can't be done solely at the municipal level. You need the AMB (Barcelona Metropolitan Area), the Generalitat (Catalan Government), the State, Europe... If I'm elected mayor, we will negotiate very hard for Barcelona and for many other cities in the country. I'm not going to be a Barcelona-centric mayor.

Should more trams be built in Barcelona?

— The priority is completing the Diagonal connection, which I don't understand why hasn't been done during this term. Furthermore, the entire public transport network needs strengthening. Barcelona should push for a third railway tunnel in the city.