Sílvia Orriols loses the question of trust and the opposition has 30 days to oust her from the Ripoll mayor’s office

The mayor of Ripoll (Girona), Sílvia Orriols, has lost the motion of confidence to which she submitted this Thursday, which opens the door for opposition groups to agree in the next 30 days on an alternative candidate to oust the leader of the extreme right-wing pro-independence mayor’s office.

Orriols, who in addition to being a member of Parliament is the only mayor of the far-right Aliança Catalana, has submitted to a question of confidence after last Monday the opposition overturned her budget for 2025.

Like the accounts, this Thursday Orriols has only received six favorable votes from its councillors, while the eleven opposition councilors have voted against. If in the next 30 days, Junts, ERC, PSC, Som-hi Ripoll and CUP do not agree on a new mayor, the accounts will be automatically approved.

The question of trust is a way to unravel important decisions for municipalities such as budgets. After losing the vote, a period of 30 business days has been activated for the opposition groups (which did not agree to prevent Orriols from being mayor two years ago) to agree on an alternative mayor.

ERC has reached out to the rest of the groups to build an alternative to AC, while Junts has hoped to form a concentration government, although it has rejected “sanitary cordons.”

In his speech, Orriols has accused opposition groups of not defending Ripoll and of having as their “only objective” to overthrow the government he heads. “They have not been united by the city but by the visceral hatred they have for me,” he denounced, reports the Catalan News Agency (ACN). “They can invest a government of all against one. It is legal, but not legitimate,” he added.

The motion of censure has been hanging over Ripoll since the same day that Sílvia Orriols was inaugurated as mayor, but the discrepancies between the opposition parties have meant that it never materialized.

In the extraordinary plenary session this Monday, the spokesperson and head of the ERC list in Ripoll, Chantal Pérez, made it clear that they would spare no effort to lead an alternative. “It is time for there to be less populism and more realism in Ripoll. We are on time and Ripoll deserves it and needs it,” Pérez appealed to the rest of the groups.

For her part, the spokesperson for Junts Ripoll, Maria Soldevila, hoped to form a concentration government in the municipality to unseat Orriols. However, the spokesperson for the post-convergent group warned that it rejects “sanitary cordons” because it believes that “they only bring complications.”