Jordi Martí Galbis wins the primaries and will be Junts' candidate for mayor in Barcelona

BarcelonaJordi Martí Galbis wins Junts primaries in Barcelona and will be the party's mayoral candidate in the Catalan capital. Martí has won by 253 votes (40.29%) against the other candidates. Pilar Calvo came in second place with 184 votes (29.30%), while Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas came in third, with 117 votes (18.63%). In last place, Glòria Freixa, who obtained 70 votes (11.15%). In total, 934 militants were called to participate, of whom 628 voted, representing a 67.24% turnout. Jordi Martí was not the candidate Carles Puigdemont's leadership was backing, but the current leader of the municipal group in Barcelona decided to step forward regardless. His victory is, therefore, a warning to the Junts leadership.

The party found itself forced into primaries that the leadership wanted to avoid, and finally, the membership has chosen throughout the weekend the four names that emerged after Martí stepped forward. In a public appearance – without questions – after learning the results, Jordi Martí admitted that it was not "easy" to step forward, but that he did so for the project to "move forward": "There are moments in life when firm conviction makes you step forward".

Junts had tried to find a consensus and media-friendly candidate to succeed former mayor Xavier Trias. They had offered to be number 1, for example, to people like businessman Tatxo Benet, who declined. The operation failed, and the current president of the municipal group in Barcelona City Council, Jordi Martí, stepped forward when he announced he wanted to run for candidate. Martí has had, from the start, the undeniable backing of former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias. However, Carles Puigdemont's favorite was Junts spokesperson Josep Rius, but he withdrew from the race when Martí announced he wanted primaries.

announced its candidate on Friday, Jordi Aragonès"The countdown begins"

"From tomorrow the countdown begins to bring change to the Barcelona City Council. We will work as one man and one woman," stated Martí. Words that were also embraced by the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull: "From now on we will all be by your side and push to win the elections again." The party's number 2 underlined the "responsibility" that Martí wanted to assume by running and prescribed him "dialogue" in the stage that now begins.

"I hope and ask that we all row in the same direction again with the common goal of bringing change to the City Council," Martí requested. The message, he said, was directed at the rest of the candidates who ran in the primaries, who were listening from the front row. Freixa, Calvo, and Cuevillas congratulated him from X and vowed to row all together. In fact, Martí assured that his candidacy will draw from Trias's legacy: "We will do it by counting on everyone." The current leader of the municipal group in Barcelona defended having brought the party to primaries: "It has not been a formality or posturing, but a real exercise in participatory democracy. It has strengthened us."

In this sense, he also took the opportunity to send a message to one of the parties that all polls predict will rise at the expense of Junts: Aliança Catalana. Martí believes that Junts' primaries have led Sílvia Orriols' party to accelerate its process to choose its candidate for Barcelona –he announced on Friday his candidate, Jordi Aragonès–. "There have been parties that have counter-programmed us and have come to say who their current candidates will be. In Barcelona there are people waiting for us," he noted.

The Barcelona primaries also have a national dimension. It will be necessary to see to what extent it costs Carles Puigdemont's leadership internally not to have backed the winning candidate and to have promoted, from a part of the leadership, the candidate who came in second place, Pilar Calvo. Be that as it may, Jordi Martí extended his hand to Turull in public: "We will be one team, we will row together, Jordi. Don't doubt it. We opened a somewhat new parenthesis, but now we are closing it to win the elections."