Three out of every four of the main Catalan candidates for 29-N have held public office

BarcelonaIn 1999, a young student named Pierre Poilievre wrote an essay in which he stated that "politics should not be a lifelong career, and elected officials should not be allowed to entrench themselves in the corridors of a nation's power". Today that same student is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and, at 47 years old, has accumulated 23 years in institutional positions. This phenomenon, the act of living exclusively from the exercise of public office, is known in political science as the professionalization of politics and can entail some risks.

ARA has analyzed 162 incumbent candidates from the six main Catalan lists in the November 29th general elections: the first eleven candidates for Barcelona –these are the spots with the most possibilities of being elected–, the six for Girona and Tarragona, and the four for Lleida. The balance is clear: of the 162 candidates analyzed, three out of four (125) have held some public office. Of these, 101 (62.3% of the total) have held, at the very least, a municipal office. As Professor Andreu Paneque concludes in an article published in the journal Parliaments, Estates and Representation, the professionalization of politicians can lead them to prioritize the continuity of their career and the interests of the party above the public good, a fact that weakens accountability and distances them from the preferences of the citizenry.

City councils are the main training ground for Catalan candidates to Congress

Of the 162 candidates studied, 101 have held some institutional position at the municipal level. Next are those who have been in Congress (33), then in Parliament (23), those who have held a government position (10), and those who have been part of the Senate (7). Only 37 candidates have no registered position in their institutional trajectory in the main institutions analyzed. These are distributed among the PP, Comuns, and Vox (seven each), followed by Junts and ERC (six each). In last place is the PSC, with only four candidates without registered positions before opting for a seat in the lower house. This does not necessarily mean that parties with more candidates without prior positions have less political experience: they may have a trajectory within the party or a professional one that is not reflected in the table.

Nine of the 27 candidates analyzed on the PSC lists have experience in Congress, closely followed by Junts (seven) and ERC (five). The latter, however, is the party that presents the most candidates with municipal experience: up to 18 have served in councilorships, mayoralties, or other positions in their local councils. The PP, for its part, presents a notable figure: it is the party with the most former members of Parliament who aspire to obtain a seat in Congress, with eight candidates who have already been members of the Catalan chamber and are now running in the elections in Madrid.

One in four candidates has already served in two or more political institutions

37 of the 162 candidates have held, throughout their careers, positions in two or more institutional categories, according to the classification used (municipal, Parliament, Congress, Senate, European Parliament, or others). And while 88 candidates have only passed through one institutional level, 14 have already assumed responsibilities in three or more spheres.

Some notable examples are Isidre Gavín, head of the Junts list for Lleida, who assumed his first position as a deputy in the Parliament at only 21 years old. Since then, he has been a councilor (paer) of Lleida, a deputy in Congress and in the Parliament, Secretary of Infrastructure and Mobility, and General Director of the public company Cimalsa. Another example is Xavier García Albiol, head of the PP list for Barcelona, who has been mayor and councilor of Badalona, a deputy in the Parliament, and a senator. There is also Teresa Jordà, head of the ERC list for Girona, who has been a councilor and mayor of Ripoll, a minister (consellera) on two occasions, and a deputy in the Parliament and in Congress. Finally, Jordi Hereu, head of the PSC list for Barcelona, has been a councilor and mayor of Barcelona, Minister of Industry, and president of the public-private company Hispasat.