The deputy Pilar Calvo will also present herself to be Junts' candidate in Barcelona

BarcelonaNew twist in the Junts battle in Barcelona. The Junts deputy in Congress, Pilar Calvo, will also run to be the candidate for mayor of the Catalan capital, as reported by RAC1 and confirmed by Europa Press. This step further increases the proliferation of candidates for the contest: as reported by ARA, beyond the municipal leader, Jordi Martí, lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas and deputy and secretary of the Parliament's table Glòria Freixa are also finalizing their candidacies pending officialization, while former minister Jaume Giró is still considering it. Former minister Josep Maria Argimon is not currently in the race, according to consulted sources, even though he met with the general secretary, Jordi Turull, just as the rest of the people who had been proposed to lead the project met with him.

The process kicks off on June 1st with the constitution of the municipal territorial commission. Then, a collection of endorsements from 20% of the membership will be required, and the vote will be initiated, with the proclamation of the results on the 21st of the same month. Once Martí announced his decision to run as Barcelona's mayoral candidate, the national spokesperson, Josep Rius, withdrew from the race, despite being the preferred choice within the party according to the leadership and being a person very close to former president Carles Puigdemont, the Junts leader. The fact is that since then and after the leadership's failed bets on well-known personalities like businessman Tatxo Benet or former minister Quim Forn, the party's highest body has begun to tell interested parties to do as they wish.

After the failure to find a consensus candidate, candidates are now proliferating significantly, and the national leadership has wanted to express its desire to maintain "neutrality" throughout the process. And this means not taking sides and opening the door to everyone, without mediating any pacts in a federation like Barcelona's, where the state of internal balance needs to be clarified. Martí has very important support within the Junts ranks in the city, which is his main asset, but the presentation of several pragmatic candidacies like Giró's or Freixa's adds further uncertainty.

The act of replacing former mayor Xavier Trias to lead the candidacy is a major challenge coming from the 11 councilors and the sterile victory of 2023, which is very far away in the current political scenario, where polls predict a much more modest result for Puigdemont's formation. Before Trias, the Junts members only got five councilors in the city in 2019, figures that relegated the party to playing a minor role.