Mercè is already thinking about the elections

BarcelonaHaving passed the halfway point of the mandate, few things happen at Barcelona City Council that don't also have a certain pre-election component. There's more than a year and a half until the elections, but the parties are already fine-tuning the machinery with one eye on the polls. Even more so if, like this Wednesday, they wake up to a poll on the table. The survey released by He Newspaper has been planned for the procession of authorities on the occasion of Mercè, a patron saint of Barcelona who, if she were entitled to vote in 2027, like many of her fellow citizens, probably still wouldn't know how to vote.

First of all, because the upcoming municipal elections in the Catalan capital still hold many unknowns. The mayor, Jaume Collboni, has officially announced that he will run for re-election for the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). Elisenda Alamany has also taken the step while awaiting the endorsement – ​​always unstable – of the Esquerra (Left-wing) base in Barcelona, ​​​​and Daniel Sirera has every chance of repeating with the PP despite the discomfort within the party with him. There are more doubts for now in the rest of the formations.

The commons, who have just seen how their leader in the City Council, Janet Sanz, announces that fold, must sort out their electoral ticket this fall, with Gerardo Pisarello leading the polls. Junts per Barcelona would also like to have a candidate this fall, or at least that's what its leader on the council, Jordi Martí, hoped this Wednesday. He is one of the candidates aspiring to be mayor, a position also being considered by councilor Josep Rius and long-standing names—for now ruled out—such as Artur Mas and Joaquim Forn. The far right deserves a separate chapter, which, despite not having any candidates—the two Vox councilors are unlikely to repeat their term, and the Catalan Alliance has no visible faces in the city—threatens to have a presence in the future Barcelona plenary session.

ERC rejects a left-wing front

With these cards on the table, the photograph offered by the survey ofHe Newspaper is as follows: the PSC would win the elections with between 11 and 12 councilors, taking advantage of the decline in Junts (which would fall from the current 11 to 7) and Barcelona en Comú, which would lose between two and three councilors and be left with between 6 and 7. The Left, on the other hand, would also improve results and rise from the current 5 councilors. The poll shows the rise of the far right. Vox would improve results and rise from two to three councilors, and the Catalan Alliance would enter the plenary session with two councilors. The PP, for its part, would retain its current 4 councilors or lose one. A scenario in which the Commons again spoke about the possibility of articulating a space for confluence between the left-wing parties that would give them options to win the elections, which Alamany buried minutes later.

The survey reveals other data worth considering in the party's engine rooms. For example, the fact that 24.3% of voters remain undecided in the city. It also shows that the party leaders are having serious trouble getting their candidates known. Only the mayor (90.4% awareness), Sirera (56.9%), and Alamany (51.5%) have a level of awareness above 50%.

An uneventful stroll

Perhaps the institutional procession this Wednesday, when the councilors walked from the Basilica of La Mercè to City Hall, will serve to make themselves known to the citizens who observed the procession. It was a placid journey, with only one protest at the end of the route where some residents of the Gothic Quarter displayed T-shirts calling for the Borsí equipment to be transferred to the neighborhood.

It was the culmination of a morning that began with the traditional Mass of La Mercè, officiated by Joan Josep Omella, during which the archbishop had words for the "armed conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine." Echoing the words of Pope Leo XIV, he called for a diplomatic solution to both conflicts and defended that "there is no future in violence, forced exile, or revenge."

As was already the case during the opening speech, the massacre in Gaza was also a prominent feature of municipal leaders' statements, with messages of concern about the situation of the Flotilla, which was again the target of drone attacks tonight. Janet Sanz and an emotional Elisenda Alamany spoke to ask for protection for the boats carrying former mayor Ada Colau and ERC councilor Jordi Coronas, of whom Coronas tearfully stated that "he wouldn't return even if the party asked him to."