Together the electoral race of Barcelona starts with a campaign against Collboni

BarcelonaJunts per Barcelona gave the go-ahead this Thursday for a long electoral pre-campaign. With thirteen months still to go until the 2027 municipal elections, the party has launched a campaign against the mayor of the Catalan capital, Jaume Collboni, accusing him of "turning his back on the city". "He neither looks, nor listens, nor responds," denounced the leader of the juntaires in the City Council, Jordi Martí, at a press conference, where he presented the posters made with artificial intelligence that the group will distribute around the city, and in which Collboni appears covering his mouth, eyes, and ears.

Junts' campaign includes two more posters, one with Collboni with his back turned and another with the mayor in front of a Catalan flag, with which they want to denounce that the mayor is renouncing Barcelona's role as the capital of Catalonia. Martí gave an example from this very morning, denouncing that during the presentation of the new Cupra Raval at Casa Seat, the mayor gave his speech exclusively in Spanish. The Junts members want to denounce a mayor who, they say, turns a blind eye to insecurity in the city, does not respond to his commitments such as the 30% reform, and does not listen to the residents.

In contrast, in the campaign material presented this Thursday, Junts presents itself as an alternative and offers its "solutions against Collboni's Barcelona." Among them, lowering taxes for families and the middle classes; effective policies against homelessness; demanding that the State fulfill its commitments; 4,000 Urban Guard agents, and 10,000 public housing units "with a real timeline."

The candidate's choice: "We are late"

Junts has thus kicked off a long pre-campaign in which, paradoxically, the party starts as one of the few that still does not have a defined candidate. The dance of names has been intense in recent months –Artur Mas or Tatxo Benet have even been mentioned, and in recent days Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas has even been offered–, but everything seems to be reduced to a decision between Jordi Martí himself and Josep Rius, also a councilor in the City Council. Curiously, this Thursday Rius was not present at a press conference where seven other councilors accompanied Martí.

The current leader of the municipal group has never hidden, since the departure of Xavier Trias, his desire to be the head of the list in the next municipal elections. This Thursday he recalled that the leadership has committed to making a proposal to the Barcelona federation before the summer, but acknowledged that he would have liked this debate to have been resolved some time ago. "We are late," he admitted, although he stressed that the result of the Together voters in next year's elections will not depend on whether the candidate was chosen sooner or later. Regarding the possibility that everything ends with primaries, Martí said that "they are a solution", but not the only one.