The reed makers recover ERC Barcelona

BarcelonaJunquerasism recovers the Barcelona federation. Ricard Farin, ERC's officialist candidate to lead the party in the Catalan capital, has won this Friday's primaries with 60.1% of the votes against the critics' candidate, Rosa Suriñach, who obtained 36.1% of the votes. In total, 72% of the membership participated, a figure exactly the same as a year ago, when the critics won by 14 votes. That leadership, which Creu Camacho had led for a year, blew up a few months ago when more than half of the executive resigned due to disagreements with the direction Camacho had taken. The internal rebellion has not benefited the critics, but rather the officialists have recovered a federation that had historically resisted the national leadership and acted as a counter-power.

Precisely, this had been one of Farin's criticisms of the critics, whom he accused of presenting themselves to act as a counter-power to the national leadership, a thesis that Suriñach herself denied in an interview with ARA. The main banner for which the officialists had presented themselves was to leave behind the internal battles that have historically marked the ERC federation in Barcelona and to focus on "being useful" to the city, as she also explained in an interview with this newspaper. Farin teamed up with Núria Clotet, current coordinator of the municipal group in Barcelona City Council, and had received the support of Eva Baró, who led the Junqueras candidacy a year ago, as well as members of Camacho's executive who remained after the rebellion. This candidacy had also been endorsed by the former leader of ERC in Barcelona, Patrícia Gomà; the current spokesperson for the Republicans in Parliament, Ester Capella; and ERC deputy Joan Ignasi Elena.

The national leadership did not officially position itself in favor of either of the two candidacies, but it was an open secret that their preference was for Farin's list. In fact, with the victory of the officialists, one of the critical fronts that Junqueras had open in the territory is closed. The party chose Elisenda Alamany as the candidate for mayor of Barcelona a few months ago. At that time, the critics did not present an alternative candidate, but the way those primaries had been called was already a cause for criticism by the resignees. Now, one year before the municipal elections, Junqueras sees how the Barcelona federation will be aligned with Alamany.