The PSC finally gets the replacements for the two Ripoll councilors

BarcelonaThe same day that in the Ripoll plenary session there were two empty seats of the two PSC councilors who were forced to resign for having allowed the municipal budgets to be approved with an abstention, the leadership has announced who their replacements will be. They will not be two "strangers from outside" as Mayor Sílvia Orriols had denounced just a few hours earlier when the resignation of Enric Pérez and Ana Avilés was made official.

Pérez and Avilés will be replaced by Paco Morillo, a resident of Ripoll, and Jorge Iglesias, a retiree born in Montevideo linked to the Ripollés region. Both are historic leaders of the UGT who have agreed to step forward after the rest of the members of the candidacy closed ranks with the two councilors and refused to replace them in disagreement with the decision of the socialist leadership, which ended up dissolving the local group..

Paco Morillo, a resident of Ripoll, developed his professional career at Fibran Group and has been linked to the UGT, a union with which he served as a union representative on his company's committee for more than twenty years. A football coach in Ripoll and Sant Joan de les Abadesses, he has also coached indoor football and has been a referee for this sport, according to a statement from the PSC Federation of the Girona regions.

Jorge Iglesias, born in Montevideo, arrived in Catalonia due to the political situation in his country. He worked at Artigas Alimentaria, where he was a union representative, and for eighteen years he served as secretary of organization for the Territorial Union of the UGT in the Girona regions. Currently retired, he participates in UGT projects in Ripollés aimed at young people and young immigrants.

In response to the criticism the PSC has received in its search for the two replacements, the PSC has emphasized that they are "two well-known and well-loved people" in Ripollés and that they "have always worked in favor of diversity, inclusion, and for human and progressive values" in a jab at the two outgoing councilors for validating, with their abstention, the far-right approving budgets for the first time with the opposition's support.

After taking nearly three weeks to find a replacement for Pérez and Avilés, the leadership has made it clear that the party is starting "a new phase" in Ripoll with the two candidates, who "are taking on a difficult task" but who they believe will do so "exceptionally". In this regard, the leadership has stated that the two socialist representatives have "the specific mandate" to demonstrate that the PSC "is committed to Ripoll and the values of equality and democracy that all left-wing parties represent in the municipality".