And then there were four! Barcelona presidential elections lose one candidate

Josep Maria Bartomeu, Joan Laporta, Agustí Benedito and Toni Freixa. These are the names of the four candidates that officially will run to be Barcelona president, after an announcement made by electoral board president Rafael Herrera on Wednesday morning.

The final result of this process, with the exact number of valid signatures. was released after removing ballots deemed void, or duplicated. Thus, of the five candidates for the presidency, only four made the 2,534 signatures necessary to run. Seguiment FCB (Joan Batiste), who presented 2,734 signatures on Monday, had only 2,518 valid ones, 16 less than they needed to make the cut.

Herrera explained: "The electoral board regrets that one of the pre-candidates (Seguiment FCB) had 16 signatures less than needed to make the cut. So we counted the ballot three times and on each time it confirmed this situation."

The result, after verifying the signatures, is as follows:

Josep Maria Bartomeu: 9,124 signatures submitted - 8,554 validated signatures (6% void)

Joan Laporta: 4,802 signatures submitted - 4,272 validated signatures (11% void)

Agusti Benedito: 3,815 signatures submitted - 3,367 validated signatures (12% void)

Toni Freixa: 3,289 signatures submitted - 3,068 validated signatures (7% void)

Now, the election campaigns enter the final straight. 10 days left to the elections and the moment of truth.