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Socialist sworn in as Barcelona mayor in boost for PM

Barcelona city council elected a new Socialist mayor on Saturday following a surprise deal with two rival factions, boosting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's party ahead of next month's general election.

Published: 18 June 2023 10:56 CEST
Jaume Collboni is pictured speaking at the party headquarters in Barcelona after Spain's local and regional elections in May 2023.
Newly elected Mayor of Barcelona Jaume Collboni is pictured speaking at the party headquarters in Barcelona after Spain's local and regional elections in May 2023. Photo: Lluis GENE / AFP

Socialist candidate Jaume Collboni finished second in local elections last month in Spain’s second city, capturing 10 of the 41 seats on the council.

But just hours before city hall voted to pick a new mayor, the far-left Barcelona en Comu of outgoing mayor Ada Colau said its nine members would back Collboni.

The move was supported by the conservative Popular Party (PP) which has two seats  — giving Collboni the support of a slim majority with 21 representatives.

While the socialists and the PP are fierce opponents, the conservatives were was keen to keep Xavier Trias of pro-Catalan independence party Junts per Catalunya out of office.

Trias, who served as mayor between 2011 and 2015, had been favourite to occupy the post again since his pro-business party came first in the May 28 election, winning 11 seats.

READ ALSO: Spain’s far right takes office in a string of major cities

The news of Collboni’s election was met with a mixture of applause and jeers from the crowd gathered outside of city hall.

After being sworn in, the 53-year-old lawyer said he “wants to be the mayor of everyone”.

In a statement, Barcelona en Comu said it sought to “avoid a Junts government that extends a red carpet to lobbies and sectors favourable to right-wing policies”.

Collboni takes over from Colau, a former anti-evictions activist who during her eight years in office has pedestrianised more streets and limited the opening of new hotels to try to curb mass tourism.

His swearing in came as Spain gears up for an early general election on July 23 in which polls suggest Sanchez faces an uphill battle.

He called the snap polls after his Socialist party and their junior coalition partners, far-left Podemos, were routed in the May regional and local elections.

READ ALSO: A foreigner’s guide to understanding Spanish politics in five minutes

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POLITICS

First pardons granted under Spain’s amnesty for Catalan separatists

A politician and police officer on Tuesday became the first people to benefit from Spain's divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in a botched 2017 secession bid.

Published: 26 June 2024 07:58 CEST
First pardons granted under Spain's amnesty for Catalan separatists

The amnesty law – approved last month – is expected to affect around 400 people facing trial or already convicted over their roles in the wealthy northeastern region’s failed independence push, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed to grant the amnesty in exchange for the key support of Catalan separatist parties in parliament to secure a new term in office following an inconclusive general election last July.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

The separatist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Sánchez’s minority government unless the amnesty is applied.

Catalonia’s High Court said it had decided to “declare the extinction of criminal responsibility” for former Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch, as well as to Lluís Escolà, an officer in Catalonia’s regional police force, since the crimes they were convicted of “have been amnestied”.

Buch was sentenced last year to four and a half years in jail for embezzlement and misappropriation for hiring Escolà in 2018 and paying him out of public coffers to act as a bodyguard for the former head of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, while he was in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Escolà was handed a four-year prison sentence for working as Puigdemont’s bodyguard.

Puigdemont fled Spain to avoid arrest shortly after his government led Catalonia’s failed secession push, which involved an independence referendum that was banned by the courts followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

Spain’s conservative opposition has staged massive street protests against the amnesty law, which judges must decide to apply on a case-by-case basis.

Puigdemont had said he hopes to return to Spain but there is still a warrant for his arrest and a Spanish court continues to investigate him for the alleged crimes of embezzlement and disobedience related to the secession bid.

He also remains under investigation for alleged terrorism over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several referendum leaders that sometimes turned violent.

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