Where do the Aliança Catalana candidates for the municipal elections come from?

BarcelonaAliança Catalana presented last Wednesday as mayoral candidate for Lleida the lawyer Meritxell Feliu, who went on the Junts lists in the last European elections after having been a member of Unió and Demòcrates. And on Friday, the Islamophobic party announced its latest candidate, Lluís Areny, who will lead the list in Sant Quirze del Vallès. Although in the last elections he ran for an independent list, Areny, the party's communications secretary, was a member of Junts from 2018 to 2021.

The first list leader the party announced also came from the Junts ranks. We are talking about Èric Esteban, number 2 for Junts in the last elections in Amposta and now a non-affiliated councilor who resigned in February knowing that he would not head the Junts list after losing the primaries a year earlier. Everything suggested that he would be the first of many elected officials from Junts to make the jump to Aliança, but the data shows otherwise. Aliança's takeover bid for Junts has not taken hold, although a significant portion of their voters, as polls predict, are now leaning towards Sílvia Orriols' party. Where do Aliança's mayoral candidates come from, then?

Of the 36 candidates officially presented by the party, 21 had not previously been part of any party or list; 8 come from Junts, 2 from an independent party, 2 from the convergent space, 2 from the PSC and 1 from ERC. 58.3% of the heads of the list, in this way, have no link to formations in the past and only 22.2% arrive, for the moment, from Carles Puigdemont's party. The bulk of the mayoral candidates, therefore, are Aliança militants who in some cases hold office and in others do not.

The other five Aliança candidates linked to Junts, beyond Feliu, Areny and Esteban, are Enric Daza, Oriol Giralt, Judit Vinyes, Marina Quintana and Anna Doblas. Daza was the head of the list and is the current spokesperson for Junts in Cambrils. Giralt was the head of the list for Junts in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres in both 2023 and 2019 and is known for being the Barça member who in 2008 promoted a motion of no confidence againstJoan Laporta. After the PSC won the elections and made a pact with the PP and an independent formation, Giralt did not last even two months with Junts. He stopped being a militant and left the municipal group in July 2023, becoming a non-attached councilor, until now he has decided to take the step to Aliança.

The Aliança mayoral candidate in Berga, geologist Judit Vinyes, was a militant in Junts for less than a month. Before founding Berga Independent Group (BeGI) in the last elections, which debuted with two representatives, she was offered to be the head of the list for the juntaires and became a militant. The core of Junts did not want her, so she tore up her card and created this independent party. Recently, she signed an agreement with Aliança that has broken this party and caused the promoters of Aliança in Berga to also resign. Vinyes' husband, Xavi López, is part of the Aliança executive in Bages-Berguedà. Like Vinyes, Marina Quintana, the mayoral candidate for Roda de Ter, also comes from an independent party, but one that was born from a split from Junts and in 2019, in fact, she was number 3 for the juntaires and held different portfolios in the government. In May 2025 she entered as a councilor after the head of the Rodem list resigned and when she was already president of Aliança in Osona since November 2024. The candidate in Vilafranca del Penedès, Anna Doblas, does have her entire political career linked to CiU and Junts and was Councilor for Sports from 2015 to 2023. In the last elections she was number 9.

Six regional presidents

Quintana is not the only regional president leading a list. Five other presidents are also mayoral candidates: Jonathan Cortijo, president in Baix Camp, in Reus; Xavier Cusiné, president in Garraf, in Vilanova i la Geltrú; Viqui Novell, president in Urgell, in Tàrrega; Eduard Rel, from Baix Ebre, in Tortosa, and Ferran Calavera, from Vallès Oriental, in Sant Antoni de Vilamajor. Calavera, unlike Quintana and Vinyes, comes from an independent party and has no ties to any previous party. He is the leader of the Party of the Urbanizations of Sant Antoni de Vilamajor (PUSA), a party with three councilors that has signed an agreement with Aliança. The candidate for Castell-Platja d'Aro also comes from an independent formation. Aitor Tendero was the leader of Partido Autónomos and was elected councilor until the group dissolved in March and he became an independent. Rel was vice-first secretary of the PSC in Tortosa and is the president of Aliança in Baix Ebre. He and Joana Berrio, candidate for Sabadell as revealed by ARA, are the two mayoral candidates with a socialist past. The only mayoral candidate with a past in ERC is Anton Torrell (Vilaverd), who was on the republican list in 2011.

Two other candidates are also part of regional leaderships. Martí Prades is the organization secretary in Solsonès and will be the candidate in Solsona. Mireia Alomà holds the same position in Maresme and will lead the list in Mataró. Arnau Liesa was also an organization secretary, in Alt Empordà, but his relationship with a minor led the party to remove him as head of the list in Figueres. The other mayoral candidates of the party do not hold any position in the regional structure and are simple militants of Aliança, like the businessman Marc Villafañé, who as reported by ARA, will be the candidate in Girona.

In the same situation are Maria Carme Mollar (Gironella), the businessmen Olivié Finestres (Bellvís), Enric Álvarez (Esplugues de Llobregat), Èric Inés (Sitges), Oliver Baró (Agramunt), Agustí Devant (Terrassa) and Jordi Ripoll (Sant Cebrià de Vallalta), Olga Pagès (Banyoles), Esther Recasens (Valls), Ferran López (Sant Joan de Vilatorrada), who is a secondary school teacher in Sant Vicenç de Castellet, where Jordi Coloma will be the candidate, Joan Surís in Blanes, Lluís Albert Bortoló in la Fuliola and Boldú, Xavier Berlanga in Molins de Rei or Roc Figols in Olvan.

Three of the six members of the leadership, candidates

One of the recently announced signings comes from the convergent space: the mayoral candidate for Castelló d'Empúries, Alícia Fuentes, who in 2023 was the candidate for Girona to the Senate for Espai CiU, of the extinct PDECat. Fuentes had already been presiding over the local executive committee of the party in the municipality for a few months. From this space, but from the era of Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, comes Jordi Aragonès, who was a member in 2015. The mayoral candidate for Barcelona, however, disassociated himself from it and joined the National Front of Catalonia with Orriols until he promoted the creation of Aliança, where he is the secretary of Studies and Programs. He, along with Orriols and Areny, are three of the six members of the governing committee who will be mayoral candidates.