SARA: Gala Pin is running late on the most important day of her life. She’s on her way to be sworn into office at Barcelona’s city hall. 

“Could you ever have imagined that you would become a city councillor?”

GALA PIN: “No. I would never have imagined that I would become a city councillor. No, no”.

CROWD AT RALLY: [chanting] “Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!” 

GALA PIN: “Politics does not belong only to the political class. It belongs to all of us. We want to be the protagonists of this – of what happens with politics. It affects us in our daily life, in our fundamental rights”. 

SARA: Gala is part of a new breed of politicians sweeping to power in Spain. The 34 year old is impatient for change.

GALA PIN: “I don’t think that there is an age to make politics and to make things change, but I think we cannot wait any more. No one will come and save you if you do nothing”.

SARA: “So don’t wait”.

GALA PIN: “No. Don’t wait”.

SARA: In 2011 the clamour for change was deafening. Protestors known as “indignados” or outraged, filled town squares across the country. Youth unemployment was 44% and rising. Hundreds of thousands had been evicted from their homes in the wake of the global financial crisis. Many saw the established political parties as corrupt and in league with big business. The protest movement was named 15M, after the day it started, the 15th of May 2011. 

GALA PIN: “15M was one of the most important issues that happened in Spain in the last forty years”.

SARA: The mass gatherings lasted several weeks. People refused to go home. They’d lost faith in old style politicians and believed the time had come for change. 

GALA PIN: “I think the most powerful thing that you can feel is hope, no? Hope and knowing that together you can change that. And this is also one slogan that was in almost all the collectives I’ve been in that is, that alone you cannot do that, but with friends and with other people you can achieve whatever you want to”. 

SARA: Gala Pin started out as an activist fighting for housing rights. One of her closest colleagues was Ada Colau. 

ADA COLAU: “We were told it was our fault, that we had lived beyond our means, we had got what we deserved, that things could not change. And for a while, we believed them. But then many of us said there must be another way. We started to organise ourselves”.

SARA: Ada and Gala helped set up a new political party with a radical anti-austerity agenda that includes slashing politician’s privileges, stopping evictions and creating more openness and citizen participation in government. 

ADVERTISEMENT: “There is a democratic revolution underway in Catalunya, in Spain, in Southern Europe and beyond. We want Barcelona to be the capital of change. And we know that this revolution belongs to us all. All of us”. 

SARA: Crowd funded and less than a year old, their party won the municipal elections.

MAN IN CROWD: “She’s a woman who comes from the streets. She knows the people. Those governing before don’t know the streets, don’t even know the cost of a coffee”. 

WALKING PAST A GROUP: [to Ada and Gala] “Go girls!” [applause]

SARA: Now Ada Colau is about to be sworn in as Barcelona’s first female mayor. 

CROWD CHANTING: “Yes we can! Yes we can!”

[standing in Barcelona Square] “This is a real moment of hope for many people here in Barcelona. You can hear people in the crowd chanting in Spanish, ‘Yes we can’. For many people who’ve felt powerless for so long, this is an important day. One of the leaders of their movement is coming to power and she’s promising to include them in decision making for this city”. 

ADA COLAU: [addressing people in Barcelona Square] “We want a town hall that collaborates with you and is transparent, genuinely transparent”.

SARA: Gala’s family are here in the crowd to witness the moment. 

GALA’S FATHER: “We’ve been crying both for our daughter and for this city. It’s a change for our country. And this gives me goosebumps”. 

SARA: We’ve been given special access as Gala and her colleagues start their first week in office. How will they make the huge transition from revolutionary activism to mainstream politics?

Barcelona is one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations. The 8 million visitors who come here every year put a lot of pressure on housing affordability for the city’s two million residents. Anger over the housing crisis helped bring Gala and her colleagues to power. In Spain, people are not only evicted for falling behind on their mortgage payments, they’re still expected to repay 40% of the debt even after the property has been repossessed.

GALA PIN: “Instead of finding people that were angry with the banks, you found a lot of people feeling guilty and trying to commit suicide, and actually we said this law has killed more than hundreds of people”.

SARA: Every day across Spain there are more than 100 evictions. Many of them are low income workers who were encouraged by the banks to take out big loans. 

HORGELIA: [evicted mother] “It was supposed to be perfect… wonderful. We were going to have our own home. We would be happy. But later, once you see how the interest rates go up and you don’t know how to pay it, it just becomes suffocating”. 

SARA: Horgelia and her four children are squatting in this flat after being evicted from their own house when they could no longer pay their mortgage. Across Spain, thousands are living like this, illegally in properties the banks have left empty. 

HORGELIA: [standing out on street] “I’m really nervous. I didn’t sleep much. I went to sleep at 3 am and woke at 6.30”.

SARA: Horgelia’s been told a locksmith is coming today to change the locks and throw them out. But the activists have turned up too. 

HORGELIA: “I feel better, calmer, knowing I have support. And I’m really grateful that they’re here with me because I was badly in need of help”. 

SARA: In this case the activists have had a victory for now. 

ACTIVIST: “Yes, yes she’s here”. 

SARA: “The scale of the problem is enormous. It’s estimated that up to three and a half million homes have been left vacant in Spain and it’s little wonder that it’s thrown up political leaders like Ada Colau and Gala Pin.

ADA COLAU: “Fortunately the whole country has realised that destiny is in our hands. If we don’t get organised and share responsibility to get us out of this crisis we are going straight into the abyss. Doing nothing is the most dangerous thing we could do”. 

SARA: It’s not just Ada, Gala and colleagues in Barcelona who are trying to create a new political reality. The municipal elections also signalled a dramatic change in many other cities, including the capital, Madrid. 

We’re here to meet the head of Citizen Participation and Transparency in Madrid’s new city council. Pablo Soto was one of the first demonstrators at 15M in Madrid’s main square. 

PABLO SOTO: “All together we realised that the only important fight is democracy. Democracy is the war that can end all the other wars. And if we win democracy we can have everything else”.

SARA: Pablo Soto never imagined he would be a politician. The youngest of eight children, he taught himself computer programming when he was still at school. He went on to invent a file sharing program in his twenties. Global music companies accused him of music piracy and tried to sue him for 13 million Euros. But they lost. 

PABLO SOTO: “It sort of makes you strong if you win. These guys are big fishes, big corporations, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t talk to them face to face. That’s a good way for thinking politics. Politicians for too long are treating companies and big corporations like the real powers and the power should be the people”.

SARA: The 15M movement was a very modern brand of people power.

PABLO SOTO: “Twenty five per cent of the people that slept in Sol the first night were hackers”.

SARA: The activists used social media to rally their troops and make collective decisions. 

PABLO SOTO: “With all those technologies there’s a critical mass for the people to make things that were unthinkable of just a few years ago”.

SARA: “Was it magical the atmosphere here?”

PABLO SOTO: “Absolutely. The 15M movement was not a happening. It was not a camp that ended, started and ended no? It was sort of a climate change, a weather change, a feeling change that created a new political subject that was the majority of the people in Spain, reclaiming things that the system is not able to give. When we, we said we want.... “real democracy now” was the slogan and they called us anti system and we said no, we are not anti system. The system is against us... anti us. But if you ask for democracy and the system says no that’s not here, then we need to change the system. The system is broken”.

SARA: Madrid had been ruled by the right wing popular party for 24 years before they lost their grip on power in the municipal elections. Carlos Floriano was the popular party’s campaign director. 

“Are you surprised that the indignados who protested in the square have now gone on to take political power?”

CARLOS FLORIANO: “We didn’t know it would have a political outcome, but actually it has had. And I think that having a political pathway for those who feel outside the system, is positive. But once inside the system you must have respect for others’ ideas. You need to talk without insulting. From outside it is very easy to criticise. What is difficult is governing and making decisions”. 

SARA: Madrid’s old school media are already making life difficult for the newcomers. They have published tweets that Pablo and some of his colleagues wrote several years ago when they were a long way from governing the city. 

PABLO SOTO: “Well things are pretty much crazy. I have thousands of death threats on my Twitter. And the thing is that the powers that be are diving on the internet and trying to find any sentence that we’ve said in the last twenty years to demonstrate that we are terrorists”. 

SARA: In 2013, he says as a joke, Pablo asked on Twitter, how long you get for killing a government minister. 

PABLO SOTO: [talking to colleague/upset] “I need to just survive in there”. 

SARA: “It’s not easy keeping up with Pablo Soto. He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when he was a child, it hasn’t slowed him down. Pablo’s first job is to tell his core team about the press attacks. 

PABLO SOTO: “We’ve got a serious problem. 

COLLEAGUE: “Okay. But we’re together, right?”

PABLO SOTO: “Yes. It’s a huge problem – we’re even being reported in the New York Times as terrorists. And the opposition is calling for our heads”. 

SARA: The team heads into the office for the first morning’s work with the Twitter scandal hanging over them. 

PABLO SOTO: “Wait. [turns back to group] From now on we’re together, focused – very respectful of all the people in there. We need to get on well with them. We’ll make sure we do”. 

COLLEAGUE: “And let’s enjoy it. Today is a really cool day”. 

PABLO SOTO: [they enter the office] “Let’s go”. 

SARA: Pablo meets staff he’s inherited from the previous regime, some of whom had been worried they might lose their jobs.

PABLO SOTO: “And I’m telling them that what we are going to do in the next few years is the most important thing that we are going to do probably during our lives and that I need them. I just told them that they are not fired. I just want them to join in”.

SARA: “How big is the pressure of expectations? It’s one thing to be an activist, it’s another thing to be a councillor, a manager, a leader”.

PABLO SOTO: “I’m not a representative. I don’t plan to represent anyone. I’m here to build the mechanisms so that people can represent themselves. So as long as you realise that you don’t lose your mind trying to be perfect, no I’m a normal guy in Spain that just like millions of people in this country realise that we need to improve our democracy because it is not solving the most basic problems of society. So let’s get the job done”.

SARA: Getting on with the job is proving impossible this morning. The Twitter saga has escalated and new culture councillor Guillermo Zapata has been forced to call a press conference about Tweets he wrote back in 2011. He’s accused of posting a joke about the holocaust but says he was taken out of context.

GUILLERMO ZAPATA: [press conference] “If this situation creates complications for the development of an area as important as culture, then I think it’s fair that I should not be in charge of this area. [Pablo drops head to the desk upset] 

SARA: Less than four hours into a four year mandate, the new city council loses one of its key people and one of Pablo’s closest friends. Pablo Soto has barely settled into his new office but things are already heating up. The power of social media which helped to get these young activists elected, is now coming back to bite them.

PABLO SOTO: “The powers is that we are confronting are the kind of powers that are destroying, literally destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Spain. There’s been half a million evictions, which means taking a family out of the house and let it be in the street. Half a million. And there’s been one million Spaniards flying away from this country because they have no future. More than 25% of the people is unemployed. More than one third of the families don’t earn 600 Euros a month and this has been made by the people that is in power now and he’s got to resign because he made a bad joke? Come on. It’s unfair”.

SARA: “Do you feel angry?”

PABLO SOTO: “Yeah, I do”.

SARA: “Sad?”

PABLO SOTO: “A lot, yeah”.

SARA: “Do you worry about your own future?”

PABLO SOTO: “No. I’m enraged a little bit so it’s not easy for me.... they’re not going to make me resign. Not now”.

SARA: After a tough first day, Pablo is still determined to talk about people power and the politics of participation.

PABLO SOTO: “In the electoral campaign we were visiting all the neighbourhoods and in every neighbourhood they know what they need. They really know what they need. Okay we need the school, okay we need this park. But the thing is they don’t have the tools to decide it. But if you let them assign the money to it, it’s their money after all you know? They’re going to spend it wisely”.

SARA: The new politics underway in Spain’s biggest city is being overseen by Pablo’s boss, the new mayor, Manuela Carmena. The 71 year old former judge was a democracy activist during the Franco-dictatorship.

MANUELA CARMENA: “I think what’s happening now shows that these outraged young people from 15M are the future of our country, and the country needs to give them a role. Personally, I feel temporary here. I just want to help the political development of these young people. I always say I don’t have a future – I’m the present, but I can help the young and they are the best thing about Spanish society”. 

SARA: “Do you think there is a long term future for these new politicians who have come from the square, who have come from 15M? Is there a long term future for them or do you think they will go quickly?”

CARLOS FLORIANO: “They’ll last as long as the people want, and what they decide with their vote. But from the beginning they’ve gone backwards in their policies because they are populist, unrealistic and cannot be carried out now, not in the future, either because it’s not possible legally, it is not possible economically or because Europe doesn’t allow some of the policies they want to implement”. 

SARA: The new mayor of Madrid is more concerned that traditional politicians have been out of touch with the people. 

MANUELA CARMENA: “An activist knows society and its problems well. When an activist becomes part of an institution they know what they need to do. What worries me is when someone gets into a position of power without any idea of what public service is”. 

SARA: Back in Barcelona, Gala Pin is still trying to get used to the protocols of being in office.

“When you were an activist, could you ever imagine a day that police would be saluting you?”

GALA PIN: “No. No, no. If four years ago in the 15M, someone had told us about that, we would be like… mmm…”.

SARA: “Never”.

GALA PIN: “What I realise is that I need a secretary I’ve never had one and I thought that I wouldn’t need it but actually I don’t need four offices, but I need one or two secretaries. I really want to have time to walk in the street and to catch what’s happening in the street and not have meetings all the time. If you don’t take a little bit of care of your time you can be the whole day having meetings and being nice”. 

SARA: The new councils cannot take their foot off the gas now they’re in power. Later this year, general elections will offer people the chance to take this new brand of citizen democracy from the cities to a national level and the new Federal parties like Podemos, will be judged on how people like Ada Colau and Gala Pin perform.

GALA PIN: “Now we have to show that it will be a big thing for this country, but we still have to demonstrate that things can be done in another way”.

SARA: While the economy may be showing signs of recovery, unemployment remains stubbornly high. 

ADA COLAU: “One of our goals is more citizen participation. I said in my inauguration speech if we do not do things well, kick us out”. 

GROUP OF GRANDPARENTS: [singing] “The grandparents in yellow jackets at least we can be seen”. 

SARA: It’s still early days for the new regime but already they’ve made changes, blocking a big tourist development and stopping evictions from public buildings.

[at event] “So we’ve got the local delicacy here which is called ‘fideua’ which translates in English to 17 kilos of noodles and prawns I think is the correct translation and some salad to make you feel good about yourself”.

For these fledgling politicians the real test will be whether they can really change the way politics works.

PABLO SOTO: “In Spain we have 8,200 towns and cities and villages that have new governments. Spain right now is like a field of experimental democracy. We receive more attention because we are Madrid, but there’s magic happening everywhere. This is going to change forever the society”.