10 Often taking a step is not a simple task. However, doing so is necessary if we want to move forward collectively. Today, in Palma, in the Balearic Islands, and throughout the Catalan Countries and the state, we are living through difficult times. The threat of the far-right and an increasingly right-wing PP is absolute. That is why it is a moment for unity and courage, the terms that my tandem partner Xisca Mir and I have wanted to adopt as a slogan for the MÉS per Palma primaries. Unity and courage to win.We need the sovereignist left, represented by MÉS per Palma – the result of decades of work by different and valuable councilors: from Sebastià Serra, Nanda Ramon, Joan Perelló, Lila Thomàs, Tomeu Carrió, Maria Costa and Jordi López to Antoni Noguera, Marisol Fernández, Antoni Verger and Neus Truyol – to articulate an anti-fascist front that brings together all the Palma citizens who do not want our lives to be in the hands of characters like Fulgencio Coll and Jaime Martínez. I feel like an heir to the left-wing and green Mallorcanism people I have mentioned, yes, but also to wonderful anti-capitalist councilors who were part of Som Palma and Podem, such as Aligi Molina and Aurora Jhardi. I am presenting myself to lead a broad and generous candidacy where, precisely, Esquerra Unida, Sumar, Podem, the Socialist Movement and the Independent Left are also present in the form they deem appropriate. Because they are, fundamentally, our comrades. I want this list to be a starting point, a catalyst, embracing independent citizens who fight for housing, for the defense of small businesses, for the neighborhood movement – which I know well in the Santa Pagesa neighborhood –, for feminism, for the Catalan language movement, for culture, for unionism, and against social exclusion. There is room for everyone.Only with a brave, plural and united tool that generates enthusiasm can we focus the debate. And the debate is very clear: we must tackle people's real problems and their material solutions. If what affects us has collective causes, the response must undoubtedly be collective and in no case individual. The people of Palma do not make ends meet, they have nowhere to live, they suffer from precarious jobs, they see how the city and its corners no longer belong to them and they live with pain the linguistic, cultural, heritage and commercial depersonalization of the capital of Mallorca. We must fight with conviction the terrible effects that unbridled tourism and the business of a few friends of the right leave in our lives. The current critical situation of the city and the times we live in demand forcefulness and radicality in the etymological sense of the term that I know as a Latin professor. People need proposals and a hard, cheerful and uninhibited political action. To break free from the frameworks that the extreme right wants to impose on us: those who harm the people of Palma are not someone with an Arab, Asian or sub-Saharan name, poor and with dark skin, but vulture funds, international extractive capitalism and the worst rent-seeking tied to the PP and Vox, who have no empathy or sensitivity for families, youth and workers.There is hope. I see municipalist role models across Europe, in the south and the north, that inspire me: Die Linke, in German cities; Adelante Andalucía; La France Insoumise; Plaid Cymru, in Wales; Sinn Féin, in Ireland; and the Green Party, in England. Brave left-wing movements, rooted in the territory and that face 21st-century urban problems head-on. The historical moment demands courage and decisiveness from us.I am 45 years old. I have been active in social movements my whole life. I know the street. I know Palma and our neighborhoods. I will lead the MÉS per Palma candidacy, aware that it will be the first time an independent person does so in the long history of the parties that form this space. Someone who is not an organic part of MÉS nor of the traditions that compose it (PSM, Iniciativa Verds, and ERC). It is an opportunity to grow, to face the new times ahead with freshness, and to do so, in the words of Manuel Monereo, by confronting the great issue that will shape the urban future of our days: “What is at stake is the soul of the working class.” And if one thing is clear to me, it is that in May 2027, the soul of the popular classes of the city that saw the biographies of the neighborhood activist Rosa Bueno and the poet Josep Maria Llompart develop cannot, in any way, be conquered by the obscurantism of PP and Vox.

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