Spain: 'Popular Unity' Councils Sworn In Amid Huge Enthusiasm
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- Published on Sunday, 28 June 2015 22:45
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1134 .... June 29, 2015
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Spain: ‘Popular Unity’ Councils Sworn In Amid Huge Enthusiasm
Dick Nichols
The squares in front of scores of town halls across the Spanish state were jam-packed with enthusiastic crowds on June 13. Tens of thousands had gathered to celebrate the inauguration of progressive administrations elected in a leftward swing in the May 24 local government elections for Spain's 8144 councils. The joy was greatest in the capitals where “popular unity” tickets threw out conservative administrations. These tickets were citizen election platforms supported by the majority of the radical left, which defeated right-wing incumbents from the People's Party in Madrid, A Coruna in Galicia and Cadiz in Andalusia.
The Catalan right-nationalist Convergence and Union (CiU) was also defeated by a popular unity ticket in Barcelona.... In Barcelona, central St. James Square was packed tight with chanting and confetti-throwing supporters of the victorious Barcelona Together ticket and its leader, former housing-rights activist Ada Colau. When the city's newly elected councillors left the town hall to make the traditional visit to the premier of Catalonia (CiU's Artur Mas), they found it almost impossible to push through a crowd set on greeting Colau and the rest of the Barcelona Together team.
In the Andalusian provincial capital of Cadiz, a wildly enthusiastic crowd of thousands greeted Jose Maria Gonzalez, the victorious mayoral candidate for the For Cadiz Yes We Can ticket. Gonzalez later said: “What we lived through in the city on June 13 was something historic. I saw people moved, people full of hope, people who were again believing – or believing for the first time – in a political project, a political project of change. People don't believe in the political class, and it's up to us, the new political people, to revive their trust and restore prestige to a task that must be voluntary and for a limited period.”
