When pressed about whether he had ever envisaged becoming mayor one day, Hereu replied, “As a hypothesis, yes, but I live in the present. I’ve never made plans. I’m very focused on what I’m doing.”
Staying focused on the task at hand is now more important than ever for Jordi Hereu. In May’s municipal elections, he managed to retain the city council for the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which has held power there for almost three decades. However, subsequent negotiations with the PSC’s previous allies Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds, saw the former decline a role in the new council and Hereu was left with a minority mandate.
This tenuous position has already shown its potential to undermine his term in office. As early as mid-July, the opposition parties on the council took control of the municipal commission for spending on publicity, an area where they have regularly accused the PSC of excessive outlay. “It’s a typical argument of the opposition, but it’s not true,” Hereu said, adding that he doesn’t have either the time or the inclination to argue with them about it, and, anyway, “Barcelona doesn’t spend any more than other cities.”
He is an amiable, chatty man, and confidently well-versed in the ways of a professional politician. Interestingly, though, when describing his political career Hereu commented in passing that he is uncomfortable with the word ‘professional’. “I would put it as: 30 years of interest in politics—almost a lifetime [starting when he was 12 and witnessed the transition to democracy]; entry into a political instrument, a party, 20 years ago; of those, 10 years in politics more in inverted commas, more as an activity. Then professional dedication for 10 years.”
Those 10 years, which followed seven working in the private sector, saw Hereu on the councils of Les Corts, then Sant Andreu and Gràcia. He was 41 when he took over from Clos, the same young age as Pasqual Maragall was when he became Barcelona mayor in 1982 (like Hereu, Maragall took power when his predecessor was summoned by Madrid). And it’s quickly clear that Hereu has been asked many times whether he intends to follow in the footsteps of Maragall and run in the future for the presidency of the Catalan autonomous government.
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