The government committee of Aliança Catalana is made up of six people: Sílvia Orriols, Oriol Gès, Jordi Aragonès, Lluís Areny, Aurora Fornos and Franc Massaneda. From this hard core of the party, the candidate for Barcelona in the municipal elections will most likely emerge. Areny is the most likely to be the mayoral candidate in the Catalan capital, according to what ARA has learned, although Aragonès could also be. "Right now there is an 80% chance that Areny will be the candidate," say sources from the formation.

The new cases of alleged corruption surrounding the PSOE have brought to the fore more strongly than ever a possible motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez. At the municipal level, however, motions do not necessarily have to be linked to corrupt schemes. Political and, above all, personal disagreements also end up ousting mayors. This is what has happened in Pont de Molins, a small town of less than 600 inhabitants in L'Alt Empordà. But here, the trigger for the change in mayorship, however hard to believe, has been a yoga class.

Aliança Catalana has been inaugurating headquarters in recent months in different cities in the country such as Lleida, Tàrrega or Valls with an eye on the upcoming municipal elections. Now, however, Sílvia Orriols's formation will lose one. Specifically in Berga. The eviction will occur in a month's time and comes just after the leader of the Islamophobic formation was heckled a week ago at La Patum with slogans such as "Fascists out of La Patum!" or "Jump, jump, jump, fascist whoever doesn't jump!"

Aliança Catalana formally only has a presence in the town councils of Ripoll and Manlleu, after losing Ribera d'Ondara, although in some municipalities it has attracted defecting councilors. Many of them do not hide it and arrive at the plenary sessions with the organization's folders. Local representatives of the party also carry them in towns where they do not have representation and where they plan to fight in next year's municipal elections. "It is about campaigning before the elections," admits a party member. This pre-campaign is not done haphazardly. The plenary sessions are prepared even though Aliança does not have a voice there.

"We have been working for many, many years for the Patum to be a success, and above all an example of harmony, of sharing, of friendship and of joy, and the City Council's plea is that this continues to be so." In this way, the mayor of Berga, Ivan Sànchez, called on Wednesday to maintain the complicity of recent years at the start of the festival. This festive atmosphere has soured this Thursday, just one day later, due to the presence of Sílvia Orriols on the balcony of the City Council. The president of Aliança Catalana was met with an unprecedented booing at the first jump of the full Patum, in which the 'guita' carried the anti-fascist flag. Hundreds of people, some with whistles, have heckled the also mayoress of Ripoll with shouts such as "Out with fascists from the Patum!" or "Jump, jump, jump, fascist whoever doesn't vote!".

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, will not have to appear at this week's plenary session to explain the PSOE scandals because ERC backed down and allied with Comuns to vote against his appearance on Tuesday. However, the head of the executive was not saved from the opposition's attacks and his partners' reproaches this Wednesday in a more than tense session to control the Government.

Two years have already passed since the final approval of the amnesty law, but the hottest part is still to come. For example, it has only been recognized in just over half (52%) of the cases of activists where it should have been applied, according to data provided by Alerta Solidària. 181 protesters have benefited from it, and also 64 pro-independence political officials. In total, 245 people have had their criminal liability extinguished, but there are 257 who are still pending, either because they have been rejected outright or because the courts have not yet ruled. The basic difference arises when compared to the police officers who were indicted: only 4 out of 162 have been denied amnesty.

Josep Rull and Jordi Turull are two of Junts' strongmen. Former political prisoners, the first is president of the Parliament, the country's second institution, and the second is the party's general secretary, second only to president Carles Puigdemont in the hierarchy of Junts members. To the Rull-Turull duo, Borrull is now added, in a wordplay in the form of a paronomasia, at least, curious. Specifically, Toni Borrull, Junts' candidate in Matadepera. He could be the future mayor of this Vallesà municipality for the next four years. And all three have played a key role in the reunification of the post-convergence space after losing the previous elections in a town where they had governed since 2007.

The mayor of Santa Susanna, Joan Campolier, has once again justified the celebration of the neo-Nazi festival Chaos in the Sun, which starts this Friday and runs until tomorrow, on a private estate. In an interview with El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, the councilor mayor has defended that in the previous three editions there have been no incidents. "It has been held for three years and there have been no problems, it has gone unnoticed and the organizers have respected the schedule," he said. Marc Buch, the mayor of Calella, where most attendees sleep, did reveal in conversation with ARA that "two years ago there was a fight between them and last night there was another one at the party they are holding in a local nightclub."

"Out of institutional respect, I remind you that the natural language is Catalan and, if you do not know it, I inform you that there are places available at the adult school. If you wish, I can give you an enrollment form." In this way, the mayor of Ripoll, Sílvia Orriols, reprimanded the new councilor of the PSC, Jorge Iglesias, who was debuting in the plenary session yesterday, for making his speech in Spanish. In a subsequent intervention, Morillo responded that he would do "the possible to learn Catalan", but asked the leader of Aliança Catalana that she "do the possible to carry out social actions". It all began when Iglesias, a retiree born in Montevideo and linked to the Ripollès region, intervened in the swearing-in and assured that he would carry out his activity "with the corresponding loyalty". The other socialist councilor, Paco Morillo, a resident of Ripoll, did not want to intervene in his debut as a councilor.

On February 5, 2015, Lluís Monge was the only socialist councilor accompanying the former mayor of Sabadell, Manuel Bustos, to the courts. The former mayor had to testify in the case of watches allegedly gifted to members of the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia (FMC) when he presided over the entity, as part of the Mercuri case. Upon leaving, Monge also acted as Bustos' spokesperson to deny that the money came from training courses and to justify the institutional gifts. That was one of the pieces of a proceeding that ended inconvicting Bustos to three years in prison in 2022.

4,079,799.04 euros. This is the amount that Spanish former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would have taken in five years, from 2020 to 2025, according to the UDEF report, for intervening in the rescue of the airline Plus Ultra and other companies. The receipt of these incomes is one of the two key affidavits that have served as the basis for Judge José Luis Calama to indict, for the first time since the return to democracy, a former head of government.

The Parliament has stopped experiencing the tense episodes of the Procés era, but the arrival of the far-right, with the emergence of Vox and then Aliança Catalana, also causes moments of unease in the Catalan chamber. This Thursday, one such incident occurred that, far from being an anecdote, has generated accusations and calls for resignation.

Vic has exceeded the 50,000 inhabitants threshold for the first time. It has gained 20,000 in the last thirty years, representing an approximate increase of 66%, double the Catalan average in the same period. The region's omnipresent agri-food industry, especially the meat sector, is a magnet for foreign labor, which already accounts for 30% of the population, more than half of whom are of African origin.

Maribel Vilaplana, the communicator who ate with Carlos Mazón for more than four hours on the day of the storm, appeared this Tuesday before the Congressional commission. She did so accompanied by her lawyer to make it clear that all she wants is to turn the page on a year and a half of a nightmare that has caused her great wear and tear, including hospitalization, before testifying in the Catarroja court.

Joan Campolier (Santa Susanna, 1950) has justified that his town hosts for the fourth consecutive year in two weekends' time a Nazi festival because it is a "private party" and that the City Council "can do nothing". The anti-fascist groups that held a demonstration on Friday and the opposition parties do not think the same, who denounce that once again the mayor of this municipality in Maresme has not sought a way to prevent it. "It is held on non-developable land, it can be considered a rave and groups that glorify Nazism act when legislation pursues it," retorts the head of the opposition and spokesperson for a coalition that includes ERC, Jordi Cusachs, who believes that "the council has a lot to say".

Catalan Alliance has been announcing some of its mayoral candidates in recent weeks. Among the names announced are party leaders from regional capitals, as well as from other municipalities. Just last Monday, Mireia Alomà was presented as the candidate for Mataró. What it has not yet done is reveal who the candidates for the four provincial capitals will be. It was supposed to be done on Sant Jordi's Day, but the party admitted that the candidate planned for Barcelona backed out at the last minute and thiscaused the announcement of the party leaders for Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona to be postponed. In the capital of Gironès, as ARA has been able to learn, the candidate will be Marc Villafañe Valero.

The philosophers Jordi Corominas and Joan Albert Vicens call to combat the rise of the radical right with their essay Extrema dreta. Què ens hi juguem? (Eumo), where they provide arguments to debate ultra positions.

Just a year ago, the PSC spokesperson in Tiana, Miquel Santiago, announced his resignation. The decision took the local group by surprise, as they had planned for him to be the candidate in 2027 after being number 2 in the previous elections and for the party leader to step down due to poor election results, which confirmed the victory of an independent party, now with an absolute majority. Little did the socialists of this Maresme locality imagine that a year later Santiago would propose himself to be the leader of Aliança Catalana, a party at the opposite end of his beliefs.

The canoeist Saúl Craviotto (Alpicat, 1984) gave the opening speech for the Lleida May Fiestas on Friday behind closed doors due to the rejection of his choice by a part of civil society. Basically because Craviotto, the Spanish athlete with the most Olympic medals –six–, was already a National Police agent before becoming a sports icon and he positioned himself against the referendum and in favor of the application of Article 155, endorsing the police repression of 1-O. With this curriculum, about twenty parties and entities unsuccessfully demanded that a substitute be sought, but Mayor Fèlix Larrosa replied that he was "an example of values".