It has taken less than two months for Ada Colau to show her true intentions: a coalition government with Jaume Collboni or her BComú party won't pass the Barcelona municipal budget. Colau has activated the countdown to put pressure on the Catalan Socialists (PSC), making clear, right from the start, the fragility of the agreement that was given to their leader when her nine councillors invested him as mayor on June 17th. A sum, PSC and Comuns, that reached 19 seats, still far from the 21 he needed. Those that were missing came from the PP, which under the leadership of Daniel Sirera put an end to the mayoral hopes of Xavier Trias.
As could be expected, the PP has played the role of the sad figure at the table: it specified as a condition of giving Collboni the votes he needed that the Comuns should not enter the city government. Sirera rightly or wrongly announced that this had been the condition, in addition to preventing a pro-independence candidate. If the Comuns are integrated into the government team, Sirera and the PP deserve serious punishment from their voters, since, for the second time, their voters, or at least many of them, will have been deceived.
It happened with the political pirouette of Manuel Valls in 2019, who, after telling everyone throughout the campaign that his votes were the guarantee that Colau would not be returned as mayor, ended up voting for her. With less stridency, Sirera repeated the same move and the most strongly pro-Spanish right, so critical of the Comuns, once again made the mistake it said it wanted to avoid. When a mistake is made twice in a row, perhaps it is because there is an enormous lie involved.
Collboni has two months to decide the path he wants to follow and how he plans to stabilize the municipal legislature. Throwing himself into the arms of Colau is not exactly what the most dynamic sectors of the city are hoping for and, moreover, it would not give him an absolute majority to govern, since he would need a third partner that the Comuns want to be ERC. Trias has not made any move, although his relationship with Collboni is fluid and they have had some in-depth meetings.
To wrap things up, Junts's position in Spanish politics, decisive for the investiture of any Spanish prime minister, forces the PSC to act cautiously. In politics there are always communicating vessels, even if it is often difficult to see them. By the way, the return of Carles Puigdemont to Waterloo, after a few weeks in Cotlliure (Northern Catalonia) with his family, is an unequivocal sign that talks with the Spanish parties are about to begin and of the importance the president attaches to the fact that these should take place in the country that has been his residence since he left Catalonia in October 2017.