Catalan Alliance, evicted from its Berga headquarters

BarcelonaAliança Catalana has been inaugurating headquarters in recent months in different cities in the country such as Lleida, Tàrrega or Valls with an eye on the upcoming municipal elections. Now, however, Sílvia Orriols's formation will lose one. Specifically in Berga. The eviction will occur in a month's time and comes just after the leader of the Islamophobic formation was heckled a week ago at La Patum with slogans such as "Fascists out of La Patum!" or "Jump, jump, jump, fascist whoever doesn't jump!"

The eviction is a revenge after the internal crisis that occurred in the independent party from which Aliança's future mayoral candidate, Judit Vinyes, comes. But let's go step by step. One year before the elections, Ramon Safont, one of the founders of this formation, Berga Grup Independent (BeGI), asked the owners of a property on Carrer Major, the most central street in the capital, to rent it to them for campaigning because they were not selling it and it had already been occupied twice.

"Despite being a small 14th-century palace of 800 square meters, they rented it to us at a friend's price in exchange for only paying for utilities," explains Safont in conversation with ARA, who was number 2 on the list behind Vinyes. At the end of the year, however, Vinyes proposed at an assembly that the party join Aliança and broke up the formation after a vote that critics called fraudulent because new militants close to the party leader were incorporated. The fact is that the other councilor, Lluís Minoves, has become a non-attached councilor, and seventeen of the twenty members of the list left due to their rejection of integration. Also, a good part of the founders of Aliança in Berga left the party in an earthquake that had two epicenters.

After the exodus, the premises passed to Vinyes, who signed a new lease agreement. However, a misfortune has now led to the mansion returning to Safont and being owned by him. His mother recently passed away and left him an inheritance that has allowed him to acquire it. "I didn't do it for revenge, but it's the karma", he admits with a hint of mischief.

Although he lives in another property and does not intend to move, with this small palace he will be able to fulfill a dream he has had for years. "I am a collector of old books, documents and photos from Berguedà and I want to set up an archive where people can come to consult them," he explains. Bearing in mind that the renovations will last from now until the elections, the ground floor of the building where Aliança is still located will be the headquarters of Arrelats, the new party created by the members of the BeGI candidacy who left.

A month ago they were notified that they have to leave, and next month Aliança will have to pack its bags and look for a new space because they have two months of leeway. Once he acquired it, Safont left the upper part to a friend of his who had nowhere to go after breaking up with his partner. He, who lives there, has been in charge of putting up a sign calling for respect for the building, explaining that in a month's time the works will begin to turn it into a regional museum. He has done so in view of the proliferation of graffiti and stickers against Aliança on the building or the kicks that anti-fascists give when they pass by. Safont reveals that Vinyes has not taken it well: "He told me he would tear down the posters because the premises are still his." Anna de Haro, who was to be Aliança's candidate in Berga and who left with Vinyes's arrival, ironically commented a few days ago on the attacks on Aliança's headquarters, attributing them to the move.