Shouts, police charges and one arrest: tension in Santpedor with Aliança Catalana

BarcelonaAliança Catalana is gradually placing councilors in local government who had previously run on other party lists. The latest instance occurred this Tuesday in Santpedor. Jordi Soteras, who had been on the Junts listOn Tuesday, Aniol Soteras, a new councilor from Aliança Catalana, entered the Santpedor town hall, filling the vacancy left by a Junts councilor who resigned, after the six people behind him also resigned. However, the arrival of this new councilor was not as peaceful as the others and ended with a scuffle. Around fifty people from the pro-independence left gathered at the town hall doors to protest Soteras's swearing-in. Soteras is currently the vice president of the far-right pro-independence party in the Bages region. Aniol Vila, the CUP's lead candidate in the 2019 Santpedor municipal elections, was arrested that evening for seriously resisting arrest during the protest. Amid a heavy police presence, the protesters, linked to the CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy), denounced the fact that supporters of the far-right party were allowed into the plenary session while they were excluded. The former CUP councilor, however, managed to enter and reportedly tried to let the rest of the crowd in, at which point he was subdued and arrested in front of the town hall. The CUP accuses the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) of using excessive force, including restraint and handcuffs. After 11 p.m., he was released on bail from the Mossos d'Esquadra station in Manresa. Outside, where about twenty friends and family members were waiting for him, Vila didn't mince words when criticizing the police action.."I only pointed out the incongruity of not allowing the town's residents into the plenary session, when inside the room there were a dozen people who weren't from the town, and who were supporters of Aliança Catalana." He added, "I'm calling the intolerance, totalitarianism, and violence exercised by the extreme left unacceptable. Really, the fascists," he retorted.

The mayor had asked him to resign from his position as councilor.

The governing party, ERC, asked the vice president of AC in the Bages region to resign his seat because "he represents a party that the citizens did not vote for." "This is defection and weakens local democracy," they declared in a statement. However, Soteras ignored the request from the Republican leaders and was appointed to the council as an independent councilor. Before the plenary session, in statements to Ràdio Santpedor, Soteras defended his entry into the City Council. "People are fed up with what they are seeing. The parties I voted for for twenty years, like Esquerra or the CUP, have failed us," he stated. from another independent councilor from Berga who has switched to AliançaJudit Vinyes, and who will be the next mayoral candidate for the far-right party.

During the plenary session, Mayor Agustí Comas, of the ERC party, denounced this new case of political defection. "In the previous plenary session, we stated that the empty seat was a democratic anomaly. Today, this council seat will be filled, but it remains an anomaly, since the person taking it represents a different party than the one the citizens voted for," he affirmed. In this regard, the Republican mayor criticized Junts for the intrusion of a xenophobic councilor into the City Hall who was running on their ticket: "There has been a lack of honesty and respect for municipal politics and for the institution." The CUP party, before proceeding to the first item on the agenda, requested the suspension of the plenary session, arguing that it could not be held under the proper conditions. "Outside, there's a demonstration with a demand that should be heard. The people are crying out for us to listen to them, and we can't keep pretending nothing is happening," denounced CUP councilor Rubèn López. Despite the possibility of suspending the plenary session being raised, the mayor said the session had to be held "out of democratic honesty and respect for the people who voted for us and whom we represent today." "We can't allow people from the town to be denied entry when there were empty chairs. We in the CUP don't want to normalize this," the CUP councilor countered, unsuccessfully.