The PSC finally gets the replacements for the two Ripoll councilors

BarcelonaThe same day that in the Ripoll council there were two empty seats from the two PSC councilors who were forced to resign to allow the municipality's budgets to be approved, 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 Ripollès region. Both are historic UGT leaders who have agreed to step forward after the rest of the candidacy members stood united with the two councilors and refused to replace them, disagreeing with the decision of the socialist leadership, which ended up dissolving the local group. "Yesterday we still didn't know that the two chosen by the PSC were two UGT unionists. At least the musical chairs in Ripoll will have served to show that the big unions are nothing more than extensions of the big parties," Orriols finished this Wednesday in a tweet.

Paco Morillo, a resident of Ripoll, developed his 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 refereed this sport, as explained in a statement by the PSC Federation of the Girona regions.

Jorge Iglesias, born in Montevideo, came to Catalonia due to the political situation in his country. He worked at Artigas Alimentària, where he was a union representative, and for eighteen years served as the organization secretary of the UGT Territorial Union in the Girona regions. Currently retired, he participates in UGT projects in Ripollès 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 liked people" in Ripollès and that they "have always worked for diversity, inclusion, and in favor of human and progressive values" in a jab at the two outgoing councilors for validating with their abstention that the far-right approved 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 era" in Ripoll with the two candidates, who "are undertaking a difficult job" but that they believe they will do "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."