From Occupying Banks to City Hall: Meet Barcelona’s New Mayor Ada Colau

There are problems related to the economic crisis, but this economic crisis is a consequence of a political crisis, of a profound democratic crisis. We have had a form of government where the political elites had a cozy relationship with the economic elites who have ruined the economy of the country, and the ultimate representation of this was the behavior of the financial institutions, of the banks. They have defrauded thousands and thousands of citizens, with abusive mortgages. They have evicted thousands of families and they have ruined the country’s economy. And this has happened because of the cozy relationship between the political and economical elites. In the face of this situation, where there have been losses of billions of Euros, that have caused social cutbacks in as basic as health care and education, it’s caused, for example, in a city that’s rich like Barcelona, a city where there is a lot of money and a lot of resources, the inequality has shot up. That means that there are people that are getting more and more rich, at the same time that there are more poor people than ever. So the middle class is disappearing."