The new councilor of Aliança resigned more than a year ago by letter his candidacy for the City Council

BarcelonaAliança Catalana has added a new councilor without needing to run in the elections. On March 27, Albert Llurba, president of the far-right party in Conca de Barberà, took office as councilor in Vilaverd due to the resignation of one of the councilors from a candidacy linked to ERC. Llurba, number five for the Republicans in the elections, becomes the latest case of an Aliança militant entering a town council without having run under its banner. And there are already six.

This new case of transfugism, however, has a differentiating factor that makes it even more controversial: Llurba resigned from continuing to be part of the republican candidacy a year and a half after the elections. As ARA has learned, the top leader of the Islamophobic party in Conca de Barberà sent a signed letter to the mayor, Magí Marimon, on December 22, 2024, in which he informed him that he was renouncing his place on the list so as not to harm the municipal group. Five months later, Llurba was proclaimed president of Aliança in Conca de Barberà, even though he had been seen at one of the party's stalls in the region for some months.

The republican mayor does not hide his displeasure at Llurba's entry into the town council. "When the deputy mayor, who was in fourth place, resigned, we sent her an email for her to confirm that she was renouncing her entry into the Town Hall so that number 6 could enter, but she told us that by law it was her turn," he reveals, still surprised, in conversation with ARA. Although Aliança has taken ownership of the elected position, Marimon is clear that Llurba does not represent Sílvia Orriols' party. "Aliança did not run in the elections, he is a defector or an unaffiliated councilor, but not an Aliança councilor." The mayor admits that he also did not expect the deputy mayor until now, Maria del Carmen Àguila, to resign, who ceded her place to Llurba: "She simply sent a message to the group we have saying she was leaving, but without giving a specific reason." In any case, he does not believe it to be "a conspiracy" to facilitate Aliança's entry, but he considers that there was no significant reason to leave.

Be that as it may, Marimon regrets not having sent Llurba's resignation letter to the Central Electoral Board (JEC), because then the highest responsible for Aliança in the region would not have entered the council. "It happened to us due to inexperience, but we also didn't expect the deputy mayor to resign," he says resignedly. The fact is that her entry alters the correlation of forces in the council. Until now, ERC had four representatives, one more than Junts, but with Llurba in the plenary sessions, Vilaverd's government team, led by Marimon, loses its absolute majority. And with it, control of the votes in the plenary session.

the arrest of a former CUP councilor during the protestsThe other members of Aliança who have joined as councilors

With Llurba's entry, there are now six members of Aliança who have entered a city council without representing that party. The penultimate to do so was Jordi Soteras, vice-president of the independent far-right formation in Bages, who entered the Santpedor City Council in February in a highly tense plenary session that ended with the arrest of a former CUP councilor during protests. Soteras occupies the vacancy left by a Junts councilor who resigned, and after the six people behind him renounced their positions. The Junts members are, by far, the ones who have suffered the most defections.

Thus, a few weeks ago, it was announced that the number 2 of Junts in Amposta, Èric Esteban, will be Aliança's candidate for mayor in the capital of Montsià in the next elections. Esteban joined the far-right party after leaving his group in February, after the list he supported for the following elections lost the primaries a year ago. Marina Quintana also comes from the post-convergent orbit, number 2 of Rodem, an independent formation born from a split from Junts, who took office in May last year due to the resignation of the party leader and when she was already president of Aliança Catalana in Osona. In Berga, the councilor and spokesperson for another independent group (BeGI), Judit Vinyes, also joined Aliança and is proposed as the party leader, which led to the departure of the driving group.

There is also another republican defector. In Sant Feliu de Buixalleu, in August, Esquerra expelled from the government councilor Conxita Iglesias, who had signed a collaboration agreement with Aliança in July. Iglesias was listed as a non-attached councilor and had left the republican group due to ideological differences, but continued to be part of the executive. The agreement with the far-right formation, however, motivated her expulsion.