The main festival: the political brawl of every summer

BarcelonaThe arrival of summer is the arrival of major festivals and, with them, the same ritual: the mayor comes out onto the balcony at the time of the proclamation. But increasingly often this ritual also becomes a headache: the moment when organized citizens take advantage of the most media-friendly stage of the municipal calendar to make their discontent heard with those in power or the politician who shows up. It is repeated year after year, and takes different forms depending on who is on the balcony, who is shouting from below, and what is at stake.

The latest example occurred in Gràcia. This Friday during the proclamation of the major festival, shouts were heard against Laia Bonet, the first deputy mayor and councilor for Gràcia. "Laia Bonet, out of the neighborhood!", shouted a large part of the public. When the town crier asked what the ugliest space in Gràcia was, the same attendees responded in unison: "Laia Bonet!". Last year, she was already heckled by neighbors and other groups.

It is, by no means, the first time that Plaça de la Vila has publicly shamed institutional representatives: the most remembered precedent is that of 2021, when Ada Colau was heckled and ended up crying at the microphone until Jordi Cuixart –fresh out of prison and invited as town crier– had to call for calm from the same balcony and called for unity and against division.

In Mataró, the socialist mayor, David Bote, received a strong heckling with whistles and shouts of independence when delivering the proclamation of Les Santes. It is not new: a year ago, the police eviction of the Espai Firal at the end of the festival resulted in arrests and injuries, and the Santes Populars platform, which emerged from those events, has since denounced the reduction of hours and the loss of self-managed spaces for entities and groups.

The dispute over who has the right to the balcony

There are times when the one who receives the scorn is not the one who governs. At the Patum de Berga, Sílvia Orriols – leader of Aliança Catalana and mayor of Ripoll – invited by an opposition councilor, was met with a large booing by a large part of the attendees during the first jump of the full Patum, in which the 'guita' carried the anti-fascist flag. Hundreds of people, some with whistles, booed her with shouts such as "Out fascists from the Patum!" or "Jump, jump, jump, fascist who doesn't vote!". In fact, even part of the square demanded that the festival not begin until she left, but the mayor gave the order for it to start.

The same dispute – who has the right to speak from the balcony – marked the Festes de Maig in Lleida, where about twenty entities asked to reconsider that the town crier be the kayaker Saúl Craviotto for his statements against October 1st and endorsing police repression. Other parties such as ERC also denounced that the "heir" of the festival was a young man who sympathizes with Aliança Catalana. Despite the reproaches, Mayor Fèlix Larrosa (PSC) maintained the town crier and the heir.

Sometimes the fight comes from the council itself. In Terrassa, the three Vox councilors unfurled a banner that read "We have you dancing" amidst general indifference at the start of the Ball de Plaça, which is the inaugural event of the main festival of the co-capital of Vallès Occidental. The far-right councilors were referring to the incidents that occurred the previous year.

Then, the three Vox councilors unfurled the banner "Vox does not dance with totalitarians" in front of the mayor Jordi Ballart (Tot per Terrassa), to denounce that the popular culture entities of Terrassa have excluded them from the dance since they burst into the City Council in 2023. Amidst great tension, Ballart reported being pushed and threatened by the Vox councilors and filed a lawsuit for an alleged crime of an attack against authority, which a court in Terrassa admitted for processing and is still being investigated.