Mireia Ingla, the squire of Junqueras whom Junts refuses to greet

BarcelonaAfter losing the mayoralty of Sant Cugat del Vallès in 2023, Mireia Ingla (la Seu d'Urgell, 1966) returns to institutional politics. Until now she held the management of the Xarxa Audiovisual Local, and this week ERC has chosen her to be Gabriel Rufián's number two in Congress. A responsibility that a priori will not be easy, taking into account the clash between the republican spokesperson and Oriol Junqueras' leadership over the broad front that Rufián has defended in recent months. With a law degree and a master's degree in mediation from the University of Barcelona (UB), Ingla has already faced unpleasant situations before.

The struggle to reach the mayoralty of Sant Cugat was not easy. In 2019, Ingla allied with the PSC and the CUP to end 39 years of Convergent mayoralties. The then republican councilor took the mayor's staff in a convulsive plenary session in which, among banners with slogans such as "Pact of shame", she saw how several of her Convergent predecessors even refused to greet her. That pact was one of the first that ERC signed with the socialists: it was the year 2019 and at that time they were still smarting after the repression of October 1st. For this reason, before becoming mayor, Ingla received a warning from Oriol Junqueras' leadership, which demanded that she not sign that agreement if she did not want to see her political career harmed.

She pushed it forward and governed until 2023, when the polls returned the mayoralty to Junts. "It was a complicated mayoralty, but it went well and Mireia knew how to stitch things together a lot," says a source consulted. Once she lost the mayoralty, she left municipal politics after more than ten years at the head of the Sant Cugat republicans.

Since then, Ingla remains linked to the party. In fact, since 2024, when Oriol Junqueras won the congress after the divorce with Marta Rovira, she has been linked to the leadership. Junqueras chose her to be part of the truth commission led by Joan Tardà to clarify the responsibilities of the case of the posters against the Maragalls. Subsequently, he also chose her to hold the position of the party's compliance officer. She was the one who wrote the final report on the poster case, which the party presented a few weeks ago before the national council.