We have always known, because there is enough evidence and data, that Ada Colau obtained the mayoralty of Barcelona in 2015 in circumstance that were, at least, suspicious. Only the planned action by the so-called state sewers to invent a false bank account belonging to the then-mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, in Switzerland, blocked the municipal leader of Convergència from a victory that he had assured. The municipal election campaign was centred on this invented account which, conveniently pumped up by all those who did not want the Catalan capital to remain in pro-independence hands, ended up becoming the dominant issue, without it making the slightest difference that the Swiss bank UBS certified that there was no such account. The damage had been done and the Comuns candidate jumped aboard the campaign to discredit Trias that eventually carried her to the mayoralty.
The state sewers, through the newspaper El Mundo, did their job, and the patriotic police achieved their goal: Trias lost the mayoralty by about 15,000 votes. When in June 2017 - more than two years later - the anti-corruption prosecutor's ofice declared the case closed because there was no evidence to support the existence of money abroad belonging to Trias, the objective had already been reached and the cynical calls of "move along, nothing to see here" carried the day. The deep state had achieved its main goal, and no one except for those displaced from power in Plaça Sant Jaume had any interest in stirring up what had been a rude but effective attack on the Convergent hegemony. It was more important to rescue the mayoralty from pro-independence hands than to clarify the actions of the state sewers.
It is good to remember all this, firstly, so that it is not forgotten, and secondly, to understand more easily what we now know about the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) action in 2019 thanks to the Catalangate affair, the biggest espionage scandal seen up till now, and for which the Spanish espionage services have already admitted responsibility over 18 cases, naming names. And now, in the municipal elections of May 2019 we now know that it was not the state sewers of 2015 that acted, but the CNI itself, with the authorization of the Supreme Court who monitored the negotiations to prevent the winner of the election, Ernest Maragall, from being sworn in as mayor. To do this, the justice system authorized the intervention of a key telephone.
The result was that the Upper Diagonal grouping of anti-independence interests, Manuel Valls, its candidate who was brought directly from Paris, and the CNI, joined in a perfect pincer action so that Colau could continue in office for another four years. On Sunday, when Ernest Maragall learned of the role of the CNI, he stated that it was a state operation, that there was electoral tampering and that Colau had retained the mayoralty with the help of the secret services. All in all, with a year to go now before the next municipal elections, all of this should have more consequences than just a series of statements by one side and the other, because it is yet another example of the gravity of Catalangate and the enormous repercussions of all kinds that are appearing.
The "exemplary" Spanish democracy that its highest officials are so proud of is full of holes and we are steadily learning more and more that, in fact, points to a regime going in the opposite direction. Now, with so much shit floating up to the surface, what will be the position of the Comuns beyond asking Maragall to rectify his accusations?