Junts per Catalunya launches the internal race to choose a mayoral candidate for Barcelona. The chosen one will emerge from the dispute between Jordi Martí Galbis, Pilar Calvo, Glòria Freixa, and Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas. These are the four aspirants who have formalized their bid to be the party’s leader in the Catalan capital, after the deadline for accepting candidacies closed this Thursday night. Starting tomorrow, candidates have one week to collect signatures to serve as endorsements, and then the party’s municipal commission will decide whether to go to primaries or directly proclaim a candidate.
The long tug-of-war within the formation has resulted in a struggle between candidates that the leadership wanted to avoid at all costs and that even led Josep Rius, favorite of party president Carles Puigdemont, to withdraw to avoid a “confrontation.” The role Rius was supposed to play has been inherited by the duo formed by Pilar Calvo and Glòria Freixa, and even within the party, several voices speculate about the possibility that they will end up joining forces to duel against Martí Galbis. Alonso-Cuevillas was the lawyer for the expresident and has publicly acknowledged that his decision would be conditioned by what Puigdemont told him.
Junts defends that by putting the party’s mechanisms at the service of the internal dispute, “the commitment to participation, transparency, and the involvement of the militancy is reaffirmed.” However, that was not the initial plan because the activation of the primary mechanism stages a struggle between two sectors of the party: the one most identified with the ideas brewing in Puigdemont’s residence in Waterloo (Belgium), in contrast to the more convergent and critical soul of some strategic decisions made by the expresident and his hard core.
Jordi Martí Galbis (65 years old) boasts of having joined Convergència at 18, has been a councilor in Barcelona for a decade and a half, and has the protection of Xavier Trias, Junts’ last candidate in Barcelona, who won after running with his own brand, instead of adopting the party’s official symbolism. Lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas (64 years old) has served as Puigdemont’s legal advisor, was a deputy in the Congress and the Parliament after the “procés” boiled over, but in February 2024 he stepped away from the political frontline after declaring himself “disappointed.” Pilar Calvo (63 years old) is a deputy in the Congress and Glòria Freixa (57 years old) holds a seat in the Parliament.
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In a letter addressed to the militancy, Josep Rius argued on May 18 that his resignation from competing for the mayoralty of Barcelona responded to a desire to pacify the party, and explicitly alluded to the need to avoid any “internal challenge.” His withdrawal text was a consequence of the decision communicated three days earlier by Jordi Martí Galbis, when he ratified his intention to compete in primaries to be a mayoral candidate for Barcelona in next year’s municipal elections. With his gesture, Martí Galbis disregarded the party leadership’s recommendations for him to withdraw from the race for the Catalan capital and, likewise, rejected offers to accept a position in a powerful company related to the defense sector.
Rius combines the position of vice-president and spokesperson for Junts with a seat in the Parliament and a position as a councilor in the Barcelona city council, which gives him a transversal vision of the party’s concerns in different forums. With that background, as soon as he learned of Jordi Martí Galbis’s firm intentions, he decided to withdraw from the fight for the mayoralty. Rius was Puigdemont’s chief of staff during his time as president, and the relationship between them is close. Within the party, he is considered a figure linked to the president and clearly aligned with the strategy designed in Waterloo. Martí Galbis is a disciple of the veteran convergent Xavier Trias. “In no case do I believe that the Barcelona project should be presented based on whether one is on the side of Mayor Trias or President Puigdemont,” Rius emphasized in his public explanation.
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