The IV National Assembly of the Commonswhich will be held in the next November 16 and 17will mark a change of cycle in the left formation, which will imply leaving behind the triumvirate in the direction formed by Ada Colau, Jéssica Albiach and Candela López. Of the three national coordinators elected in 2019 only López will continuemayor of Castelldefels from 2015 to 2017 and current deputy in Congress, who will be accompanied by Gemma Tarafacouncilor at Barcelona City Council. Reduced to almost only a metropolitan party after chaining bad results to the last election cyclethe Comuns advocate improving their territorial implementation and The municipal elections of 2027 are set as a “priority objective.”
To reach them, they will launch a direction that will combine continuity and renewal after the assembly, in which everything indicates that there will only be one candidacy. Colau and Albiach have been its best-known leaders in recent years, but for different reasons both leave their organic positions. It’s been weeks since The former mayor of Barcelona announced that she was leaving institutional politicsa decision that will materialize in the municipal plenary session this Friday. Of course, with the very open horizon of a probable return in 2027 to “recover” the mayor’s office. Albiach, on the other hand, stated this Monday that will not continue as party coordinatoralthough he will remain as leader of the parliamentary group.
The departure of both will force the Comuns to “empower new leadership”one of the objectives set “We build a common future”the political and organizational presentation approved a few weeks ago by the National Council of the formation and that the bases will vote on in the assembly next month.
The new direction is intended more choral and more focused on strengthening the organizationwhich outside the metropolitan area of Barcelona has not expanded successfully, beyond some specific exceptions. In this sense, coordination will go from a triumvirate to a tandem. Both López and Tarafa are Colau’s most trusted peoplealthough there are some differences between them.
The first, who has been a councilor in her city, Castelldefels, since 2007, comes from the old ICV and came to to be part of the leadership of the ecosocialists before the process of confluence that would culminate in the creation of the Comuns. Tarafa, on the other hand, entered party politics just a decade ago, as one of the promoters of Guanyem, the embryo of Barcelona en Comú. Doctor in Molecular Biology, former university professor and former researcher at the Debt Observatory in Globalization (ODG), since June 2015 she has been at the City Council of the Catalan capital. In Colau’s first term (2015-2019) as Health Commissioner, and in the second (2019-2023) as an elected official and councilor of Health, Aging and Care. He is currently an opposition councilor.
In a way, the tandem between López and Tarafa will maintain a balance between the leaders from the old ICV and those who made the jump to politics from activism, like Colau herself. Among the first, names stand out such as the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, the deputy in Congress Aina Vidal, the deputy in the Parliament David Cid or the councilor in the City Council Janet Sanz, who takes over from Colau at the head of the municipal group of Barcelona en Comú.
The role of Joan Mena
In the new management structure the figure of deputy to the coordinators is createda position that will be held by the until now spokesperson, Joan Mena. A former deputy in Congress, he is also a councilor in Sabadell, his city, and comes from the former Esquerra Unida i Alternativa. The new spokespersons will be the deputies in Congress Aina Vidal and Gerardo Pisarello. The former led the Comuns list in last year’s general elections, while Pisarello was the first deputy mayor in Barcelona City Council from 2015 to 2019 and subsequently moved to Congress. He also made the leap to politics from activism.
In addition, the organization secretary It will be made up of two women, the former mayor of Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Barcelona) Lidia Muñoz (2019-2022), from ICV; and the economist Tania Corronsinvolved in BComú from the beginning and former spokesperson for the municipal formation. Finally, the figure of institutional managerswhich will fall to both Minister Urtasun and Jéssica Albiach.
The challenge of the municipal elections of 2027
Beyond the charges, the new roadmap of the Comuns proposes “strengthen the organization to give new impetus to the project and reconnect with the social majorities of the country.” In addition, he places the next electoral event, which in principle has to be the municipal elections of 2027, “as a first level strategic challenge“and it is urged to dedicate the “maximum efforts” to preparing these elections. In this sense, it is considered “fundamental” to arrive with “organizational growth throughout the territory” and with “the presentation of more candidates.”
In the Catalan sphere, the presentation states that “Catalonia is in a transition phasewhere there is neither a consolidated political majority in the Parliament of Catalonia nor a social majority that guides the direction of the country.” From here, he defends that There are “two possible paths”: “a majority oriented towards the elites and economic powers, perpetuating social inequalities and not decisively facing the climate challenge” or “a second path that is the construction of a popular majority that, both at the level of parliamentary agreements and from outside institutions, promote the ecological-feminist and social transformation of Catalonia”. And he defends that the mission of the Commons “is politically lead the construction of this popular political, social and climatic majority”.
Furthermore, the text considers that with the end of the process training must be able to “challenge a broad social space that identifies with the values of the left and Catalanism and that is in a moment of redefining its electoral affiliations.” While as a proposal for resolution of the political conflict it advocates “a new pact with the State to achieve strong self-government based on singular financing and recognition of the plurinational and plurilingual character of the State”, with the horizon of moving towards a “Plurinational Federal Republic”.
Electoral setback
Since 2015, when they prevailed in the municipal elections of Barcelona and, later, in the general elections of December of that year and in those of the following June, The Commons have a downward electoral trend. In the parliamentary elections in May, the candidacy led by Jéssica Albiach lost 13,550 votes –6.9% of those obtained in 2021–, but it went from eight to only six deputies. The most significant thing, however, is that the party only won seats in the province of Barcelona, an event that had never happened in the space previously represented by ICV-EUiA or the PSUC.
They were the first elections after the break with Podema formation that would surpass them in Catalonia by 8,000 votes in the European elections in June. Precisely, rebuilding bridges with the purple formation is another objective of the new stage of the party, if what it intends is to strengthen a left-wing project that wants to address popular majorities.
Previously, The municipal elections of May 2023 also represented a setback for the spacewhich lost about 90,000 votes and about thirty councilors compared to those obtained in 2019 by its own candidacies and those of Podem alone. It barely added 266,739 votes and 244 municipal representatives. Only resisted in the general elections of July last yearwhen he maintained seven deputies, despite losing more than 50,000 votes.
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