Her public appearances are few and far between. But this Monday, Anna Gabriel returned from Switzerland, once again, to break her silence, to call for support to the CUP candidate in the Barcelona municipal elections, Basha Changue, in a meeting in the Gràcia neighbourhood. To support the far-left party and, despite the fact that "it won't be easy", push to try to get representation in the Catalan capital again and be "the permanent nightmare" of the future mayor of Barcelona and the economic lobbies. And she warned: "We have not come to make cosmetic changes or defend a mere reform, we want to shake the foundations of the system to reverse it." She had not taken part in a CUP event since the anti-capitalists' summer school, in September. And if Gabriel concentrated on the social policy, Changue talked of the national issue, claiming to be "the only pro-independence candidate". Isabel Chacón was also present, having just arrived from Istanbul, where she had been detained by the Turkish authorities.
In an event in Gràcia's Plaça de la Virreina this Monday evening, Anna Gabriel admitted that "it won't be easy" and that they face a "news blackout", after being excluded from debates on public television. But, even so, she was convinced that the CUP will return to the Barcelona City Council. "In four years we will meet again and say: you were right. Since councillors from the CUP were first present, things have changed. Whoever is mayor, they have a daily nightmare, that is, the councillors for the CUP", said the former member of the Catalan Parliament. She also sent a warning to the economic powers: "We will be a permanent nightmare for them, and I say this with a smile, to the tourist lobbies and real estate agents." And she added: "We will not make it so easy to outsource, to make pacts with the powerful or to roll out the red carpets for people with particular interests". In this regard, concluded Gabriel, the CUP does not come to "make cosmetic changes", but rather "they want to shake the foundations of the system to reverse it and make another way of living possible".
The mayoral candidate, Basha Changue, was responsible for focusing on Barcelona's political reality, and vindicated herself as the "only pro-independence candidate" in the face of all the rest. She accused Ada Colau and Ernest Maragall of being "part of the same appeasement operation". In particular, she railed against ERC, the "crutch of the PSOE and Podemos" in Madrid and "guarantee of the powerful" in the Catalan government. "Maragall does not want the mayor's office to turn Barcelona into an independence bastion, but so that the state can settle again", she denounced. But she also criticized the candidacy of Xavier Trias, who has "clarified positions" after "the great stagings" of rhetoric based on electoral interests. "The fight for independence is over and now they only fight to lay down the carpets for the powerful", she asserted.
Close police stations
This Monday, the CUP candidacy took its electoral campaign to Via Laietana number 43, from where they demanded the closure of the headquarters of the National Police Force in order to transform the building into a space for anti-fascist remembrance. They requested the same for the Bruc military barracks, in Pedralbes, as well as the Civil Guard barracks in Gràcia and the National Police Statin in La Verneda. They were accompanied by people who had been detained and tortured in these facilities, as is the case of the historical and linguistic activist Blanca Serra.