The ANC (1) (Catalan National Assembly) is campaigning to get the 400,000 Barcelona residents who voted Yes-Yes on 9 November to support pro-independence options in the municipal elections. It’s quite a tall order, if we bear in mind that in 2011 the sum total of votes for CiU, ERC and CUP barely exceeded 200,000 in the Catalan capital (only Mayor Pasqual Maragall, in the pre-Olympic years, reached 400,000).
Local polls should not be compared with a plebiscite election, but the Madrid press has spent days trumpeting the idea that the candidacy of Ada Colau could block a pro-independence majority in Barcelona’s city hall. Many people from the PSC, ICV, and alternative leftist parties-- including Colau herself-- voted Yes-Yes on 9 November, but everybody knows that only the votes for CiU and ERC (and the CUP as well -- if it gets any seats at all) will be taken into account when judging whether Barcelona is closer to or further away from becoming the capital of a country.
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(1) N.T. The ANC is the main grassroots, non-partisan, pro-independence organisation behind the September 11 demonstrations in Catalonia.
