It will not be easy for Carles Campuzano to forget the visit he made last Sunday to Santa Coloma de Gramenet. The new Catalan minister of Social Rights, who arrrived at the post last October as an independent to fill one of the positions vacated by Junts (Together for Catalonia) as it left Pere Aragonès's government, many of them - coincidences, coincidences - his colleagues from a past political life in Convergència Democràtica, has found himself embroiled in a controversy due to his slow reflexes. He was unable to escape quickly enough from a minefield that started out as a promise by Catalan Republican Left (ERC) MP and candidate for mayor, Gabriel Rufián, over the construction of a second senior citizens' residential home in the Barcelona suburban town. A tweet from ERC on Monday further amplified the confusion between a party event and one held by the government: "The head of the ERC list, Gabriel Rufián, and the minister of Social Rights, Carles Campuzano, agree to build a second public residence for senior citizens in Santa Coloma de Gramenet if the Republicans are decisive in the next council".
Campuzano, who was a deputy in the Spanish Congress for 23 years and spent two more in the Catalan Parliament, as well as being president of the Convergència youth wing before handing over the office to Josep Rull, is by no means an inexperienced politician. He's tough and his resumé backs that up. Always interested in social issues, it is possible that he thought that what he heard from Rufián or the reaction of ERC was not so different from the language used by another well-known Convergència leader who held the portfolio for many years, Antoni Comas. Those were different times, certainly, and it worked for Comas until the CDC itself had to change its system after permanent accusations that it was creating a clientelistic network.
Now Campuzano will have to explain himself to Parliament and try to dexterously ease out of the predicament he is in. Junts is looking forward to the occasion and even asking for his censure as a minister. The Catalan Socialists (PSC), always more cautious although also critical, await to hear what explanation he will give. And the Commons (En Comú Podem) are not happy either. The already-underway municipal pre-campaign, with the election just over two months away, on Sunday 28th May, will affect the level of confrontation that occurs and we can but wait and see who ends paying for the damage done. All this, at a time when the polls are not exactly flattering for ERC, who appear relegated to fourth place in Barcelona after winning the 2019 elections. The appearance of Xavier Trias has whipped up the waters of the Barcelona pond to the point that the roles now seem reversed between the former mayor and ERC's Ernest Maragall.
In the background of these battles there is also ERC's aspiration to gain control of the Barcelona provincial body, the Diputació, and it is this that has led to its commitment to send party heavyweights to strategic places in the urban periphery and help strengthen its provincial representation. In pursuing this old idea, figures like Rufián, not particularly happy with the plans made by the party and especially those of Oriol Junqueras, are important not so much for disputing the Socialist mayoralty of Núria Parlon in Santa Coloma - where the PSC holds 17 of 27 councillors and ERC just 3 - but to improve the 2019 results in the Diputació, in which the Socialists won 16 places last time out of the 51 that make up the provincial body, and ERC another 16. Repeating the same councillors in the city of Barcelona, the provincial presidency seemed a possible goal, but now, if prospects in the capital are deflated, it is more in doubt.