• Accord would see PSC’s Collboni become Mayor Ada Colau’s second lieutenant
• Socialists lost Barcelona mayor’s seat in 2011 after governing city for 32 years
Barcelona mayor Ada Colau has invited the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC-PSOE) to form part of her minority government on the municipal council of Spain’s second largest city in an effort to shore up her ability to govern, following a touch-and-go battle with other left parties over the approval of her administration’s municipal budget over the past two weeks.
Pending approval by the membership of Colau’s Barcelona en Comú (BComú) platform and the PSC Barcelona directorate and membership, an agreement reached Monday would see Catalan Socialist politico Jaume Collboni, who headed the PSC’s unsuccessful slate in May 2015 municipal elections, become Colau’s second lieutenant, with three other PSC councilors assuming secondary posts within the government.
The PSC, which governed Barcelona for 32 years before losing the 2011 mayoralty race to the centre-right CDC party, is apparently seen by Colau, whose own BComú movement holds just 11 of the municipal council’s 41 seats, as a stable partner and counterweight to other parties in her efforts to govern the city and push through progressive initiatives.
► Read More in Spanish at El País and La Vanguardia …
