Ada Colau already has someone to accompany her on her adventure in Madrid. The Comuns have validated the lists for the general elections, which hid a last-minute surprise: Aina Vidal, the current deputy spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, has been excluded. This Wednesday's national council was not exactly smooth sailing, with several voices dissenting from this decision, which also provoked a significant protest vote. The lists for the four Catalan constituencies were approved with 66% of votes in favor, but with 34% against and 20 blank votes. Vidal was the head of the Comuns list in the 2023 elections.

"The press may not be very successful in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about." The phrase, pronounced by political scientist Bernard Cohen in the sixties, admits many nuances adapted to the current world, in which the media no longer monopolize what is known as agenda-setting (basically, the determination of which topics are most relevant). And during the last few days, in political and journalistic circles, there was talk of nothing else but the 30 rental apartments with which the partner of the PSOE spokesperson does business.

Gabriel Rufián, number 1; Mireia Ingla, number 2; Jordi Albert, number 3, and Laura Pelay, number 4. These are, for the moment, the candidates that ERC has announced for the Barcelona constituency. To complete the list for the demarcation, the numbers will reach up to 32 (plus the substitutes), and it has not yet been made public what position the person designated by Podem will occupy. But who will it be? According to sources consulted by ARA, one of the names that the purple party had put on the table was that of the journalist Cristina Fallarás, a Catalan born in Zaragoza and a resident of Madrid. But it will not be her who finally becomes part of the republican candidacy. Podem, in fact, avoids publicly advancing any name, but assures that it will come from the open primary process that it started this Wednesday and that will close this Thursday. The name will specifically come from the people who have presented themselves in the Barcelona demarcation.

On November 29th there will be no Aliança Catalana ballot at the polling stations and there is a good number of potential voters for the party presided over by Sílvia Orriols who will look for alternatives. Who benefits most from this situation? For some time now, surveys have been drawing a scenario in which there are two parties that stand out as option B for citizens who, when the time comes for the Catalan elections, are clear that they will choose Aliança. Almost 4 out of every 10 of these voters will opt for either Vox (18.5%) or Junts (18%), according to the latest barometer from the Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), published this Wednesday.

There is probably no historical reference further removed from what the Spanish left claims to represent than Louis XIV. The Sun King, the grandfather of Philip V, is the primary icon of absolutism, centralism, and a lack of respect for minorities. His power in France – and beyond – became so great that, to define it, a phrase is attributed to him that he probably never said: "The State is me".

The alliance between Gabriel Rufián and Podemos "is a front open to anyone who wants it," explain sources from the environment of the ERC spokesperson in Madrid. Translated, this means that if Ada Colau and her Broad Front want to join –paying the price demanded of them–, the door is open for them or, even more clearly, that if they run in a different candidacy it will be because they wanted it that way. Obviously, it is not as simple as that, but in the battle for the narrative, the signing of Rufián by Podemos makes it easier for this to be the interpretation when the moment of truth arrives.

Not only is it prepared for the elections, but Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP has been calling for them for at least a year. Vox even symbolically opened the electoral pre-campaign a few weeks ago in Catalonia, with Santiago Abascal as the undisputed leader of the candidacy. The right-wing parties are eager for the polls —despite the strategic warning that the Spanish government could try to manipulate them— because they are convinced that, this time yes, the doors of the Moncloa will open for them. On the left, however, there is a vacant lot with everything to be done in a rush.

"For my birthday I want a Bad Bunny figure, an Anuel AA one, or one of Gabriel Rufián". The girl asking for it won't be able to vote on November 29th (for any of the three), because she is only thirteen years old, but at her high school she doesn't need to give many details for her 2nd year ESO classmates to know who she is talking about. Two world music stars and a politician, the one who has the most appeal among young people (and not so young). Although he began his political career in 2015, Rufián is experiencing a second youth in Madrid. Having become the preferred leader for left-wing voters (only Pedro Sánchez overshadows him) and the best-rated in polls (in Spain and in Catalonia), he is currently the most coveted candidate: for ERC, for the Broad Front, and for Podemos. The vote-mobilizing potential of his speech is not disputed by anyone, but, consolidated as a free spirit, the tensions within his party have been growing to the point of becoming a big enough problem that his continuity has been called into question.

Everyone to the polls. Pedro Sánchez has put an end to the rumors by announcing the end of a legislative term that will be high-stakes until the very last moment. His government had long since lost the majority to approve relevant projects, and the Moncloa was holding out, waiting for the ideal moment to challenge the right-wing parties, the clear favorites to govern from now on. In the PSOE, they believe the moment has arrived with the housing crisis and that they are prepared to face the elections with guarantees. How are the parties arriving at this call to the polls?

The last time he took a few days to reflect, Pedro Sánchez returned with "more strength", ready to "put a stop to the politics of shame". During those five days in April 2024 –in the middle of the election campaign in Catalonia–, everyone was pending his decision, which at the time had to do with the attacks his wife received, today about to be tried for embezzlement and influence peddling. Now things are slightly different: no one expects him to step aside, but everyone is waiting for him to make a decision. Will there be elections before the end of the year? At the PSOE they are prepared and with each passing day the voices pointing out that the legislature has ended are growing.

It seems that Pablo Bustinduy (Madrid, 1983) is unaffected by siren songs. He has received many since he took the floor on Friday at the Congress of Deputies to defend the second of the housing decrees, the one most similar to the proposals of the Tenants' Union. These songs tell him to lead the candidacy of the Broad Front, the brand with which the heirs of Sumar are working for the elections. But the Minister of Social Rights discarded wearing that hat a long time ago. "I don't believe that is the role I should assume," he said in March. And the fact is that Friday's was not his only viral speech, due to its forcefulness and originality.

The Spanish legislature is running out and the left is not prepared. Whether in the summer, when four years will have passed since the last elections, or at the end of November in case Pedro Sánchez presses the electoral button this Monday, Comuns, Sumar, IU and Més Madrid have not yet defined the structure or the candidate. The failure of the housing decrees has shaken the political board and this Saturday Ada Colau activated the electoral mode with an urgent call. "It is the moment for great alliances. The citizenry would not understand if everyone went their own way," she exclaimed at the inauguration of a conference of the School of Political Imagination organized by the Sentit Comú Foundation, which is presided over by Colau herself.

The debate surrounding the two housing decrees that were voted on this Friday in the Congress of Deputies has left some parties so disoriented that in recent days, rumors of an imminent electoral call in the State have multiplied in parliamentary circles. For the second time in recent years, Pedro Sánchez has initiated a period of reflection, now to decide if the time has come to call early elections. Several sources connected to the Moncloa and consulted by the ARA acknowledge that it is a scenario that is on the table. The first available Sunday would be November 29.

They tried it in 2010 with a socialist government – back then with Àngel Ros as mayor – and it is now the PSC once again pushing for the ban on full-face veils on the streets of Lleida. It is one of the novelties incorporated into the civic ordinance that the Paeria approved this Friday, thanks to the pact between the socialists and Junts. "With the same foundation of guaranteeing social interaction in the terms usual and typical of a free and democratic society, it is prohibited to wear any piece of clothing, garment or other attire that conceals the face in public spaces," specifies Article 12. It will be considered a minor offense and will entail fines of between 400 and 750 euros, although before fining, women who wear, among others, a burqa or niqab, which has been banned in the city, will be warned.

Roger Español (Tarragona, 1974) was one of the thousands of activists who, on October 1, 2017, defended the ballot boxes and polling stations where the independence referendum was being held. He suffered the worst of it when one of the rubber bullets fired by the National Police in Barcelona blinded his right eye. Today, nine years later, he is still seeking justice and has managed to bring four of the police officers who participated in those charges to the defendants' bench, including the riot officer who shot him. They will be the only officers tried for the police violence of October 1st.

Between 1984 and 2024, invariably, the independence movement (or, rather, the sovereignty movement) always held a majority in the Parliament of Catalonia. But the end of the 'Procés' sank the electoral prospects of the parties that had driven it and cleared the way for Salvador Illa to enter the Palau de la Generalitat. The third socialist president also arrived with all the cards to break the curse of one-term presidents and, with practically no opposition, it was expected that he could consolidate his leadership.

Although it was not seen on television, the estelades filled the stands of the Camp Nou in the match two weeks ago against Athletic Club. An image that had not been seen in the blue and garnet stadium for some time and that the independence movement has claimed as one of the green shoots of a new beginning that some of its ideologues are beginning to glimpse in the short term. The latest barometer from the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO), published in June, broke a worrying dynamic for the yes vote: it marked the best percentage (45%) since March 2019, six points more than a few months ago. And this same week, all the presidents of the ANC have put aside their disagreements to be photographed together, claiming a Diada of unity.

"If I preside over the Generalitat, the Minister of the Interior will be Núria Parlon, who has been excellent in security policies, and, since I want to professionalize management in Catalonia, the Director General of the Police will be Josep Lluís Trapero, who is an example of a public servant." The star announcement of the then-candidate Salvador Illa in the last debate of the 2024 electoral campaign was to place the Parlon-Trapero tandem at the head of security decisions. Illa (and also Trapero) was warned of the contraindications of placing a police officer to act as a politician, but, already as president, the message he wanted to convey was one of full confidence in a decorated expert –a media protagonist and, today also a cinematic one, of the pursuit of the La Rambla terrorists– and, incidentally, to repair the injustice he perceived that the Aragonès government had committed by dismissing him as head of the Mossos.

The new financing model has passed the first vote in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) with the support of Catalonia and the Canary Islands (in addition to the Spanish government) and the vote against it from all the autonomous regions governed by the PP and the PSOE. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero (Caldes d'Estrac, 1976), is satisfied.What future awaits the new model now?

It has been almost two months since the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) endorsed the amnesty, but, for the moment, nothing has been done. Spanish courts keep numerous cases blocked, even those directly affected by the CJEU's decision, such as that of the CDR and the Court of Auditors. The latest decision, this Thursday, comes from the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), which keeps the case against Josep Maria Jové and Lluís Salvadó, two of the officials of the sub-government of October 1st, suspended. The TSJC presented a preliminary ruling to European justice in 2024 asking whether embezzlement could be amnestied. Since the CJEU has not yet responded to this question, the magistrates Fernando Lacaba, Jesús María Barrientos and Carlos Ramos –who signed the interlocutory order–, reaffirm their decision to continue waiting.