Wait no more. Edmundo Bal, spokesman for Ciudadanos in the Congress of Deputies and one of the party’s best-known faces, has decided to take a step forward and will work on his own candidacy for lead the formation from the general assembly next January. The deputy officially embodies the critical sector against Inés Arrimadas, who must decide if she presents her own list.
According to the organizational model agreed at the meeting last Friday with all the heavyweights of the party, each candidacy must have a general secretary (who will be responsible for the organic part) and a national spokesperson (who, de facto, is supposed to be the political voice of the party and the main person responsible for the strategy). Bal did not advance with whom he will do a tandem — “I am calling a lot of people and we will see it in the coming weeks,” he said — insisting on the idea that the refounding process in which Ciudadanos is embarking “needs something really new, that is revolutionary and a change of roles and leadership“.
Right in front of the Congress of Deputies, the orange spokesman appeared in an unexpected call to insist that his objective “is not to present himself against anyone or against Inés Arrimadas”, but made it clear that she cannot continue leading the party. He affirms that his step forward has a lot to do with the contact with militants and affiliates who are expressing his opinions these days, despite the fact that he was already a candidate for the presidency of the Community of Madrid in May of the year past and did not get representation.
Bal justified the poor results by recalling the hard time his party was going through, “the campaign of destruction of Pablo Casado and Teodoro García Egea” and that the polls gave them 1% in voting intentions at the start of the campaign against the 3.57% that in the end they obtained that May 4th. “I’m going to work for the one who tells us that one day he voted for us, do it again“, he explained.
The spokesman defended that “the liberal and progressive political option” is “fundamental” in Spain despite the fact that the polls currently predict the disappearance of the oranges. Despite the fact that his announcement speaks of a candidacy to lead the new party that will come out of the assembly, there are many steps to take. You’ll first need to set up a full roster, which will be primaries against the rest who come forward (if any). From that assembly will come the new two-headed leadership of Ciudadanos.
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The political spokesperson (to which he aspires) is closely linked to the candidacy for the next general elections but, in any case, for that purpose there will be new primaries later on.
As this newspaper advanced, the confrontation between Arrimadas and Bal had been cooking for some time in the parliamentary group, where the president only has the support of the man from Malaga Guillermo Diaz. Bal’s candidacy implies an absolute internal implosion that will test coexistence in the Congress of Deputies.