The councilor who wished for a Ripoll free of the far-right and ended up saving Sílvia Orriols

BarcelonaRipoll's politics has acquired national relevance, with media overexposure of its councilors due to the arrival of Aliança Catalana. This week, the municipal spokesperson for the PSC, Enric Pérez (Ripoll, 1980), has experienced this. After his group abstained and allowed Silvia Orriols' budget approval, the indignant socialist leadership summoned the two councilors, and they put their positions at the party's disposal.

Pérez, however, is not new to politics, and he made the decision convinced it was the best for the capital of Ripollès. He was a mayoral candidate in the last elections, also in 2007, at just 27 years old, and in 2011, and he has been a councilor for fifteen years, in addition to being a regional president for four years. His extensive experience has led the Minister of Territory, the also Girona-born Sílvia Paneque, who knew of his value, to hire him as an advisor for institutional action.

"In Ripoll, we are stuck in Groundhog Day," Pérez recently told ARA, not wanting to relive last year's spectacle, referring to the failure to oust Orriols after Junts pulled out of the pact at the last minute, at the behest of the national leadership. A man of consensus and pacts, according to municipal sources, far from the outbursts that mark current politics, Pérez wanted to put out the fire, and the fire grew.

The open wounds this term, which he defines as the most tense, have led to none of the other three parties that led the motion of no confidence – Junts, ERC, and the CUP – repeating as candidates in the next elections, and some have even quit before. He, on the other hand, does not hide his determination to be the mayoral candidate again, which is now more at risk, even though he is the strongman of the socialists in Ripoll.

In an interview with a local media outlet in 2011 as the head of the PSC list, he admitted that he was concerned about the xenophobic Plataforma per Catalunya running in Ripoll. "I hope ideologies like this never gain representation." But his wish was not fulfilled, and the xenophobic party gained a councilor. At that time, however, CiU held an absolute majority, and now the far-right, which draws from the ideological legacy of Josep Anglada, governs Ripoll.