Doubts about the future of the party extend to all of Spain with a party in the UCI that must face an impossible electoral date
The crisis unleashed in recent days on account of the possible jump of Begoña Villacís to the PP has spread to all of Spain in Ciudadanos. In all the provinces they recognize “restlessness” and “discouragement” because of what happened and because of the situation in which the party is left to face elections that were already almost impossible. The deputy mayor of Madrid is by far the main political asset that Ciudadanos has within municipalism. And the possibility of his departure or contacts with the PP (especially the meeting he held in the outskirts of Genoa with Elías Bendodo, number three of Alberto Núñez Feijóo) made the game face once again the feeling of abyss.
The party is broken and that is a fact. But, with everything, the new national leadership has been exhaustive in its intentions: there will be a Citizens ballot in all the town halls in the month of May and they do not conceive of coalitions with the PP. This weekend the candidates who present themselves to the autonomic ones and bigger cities must apply. Among them will be Villacís. The most complicated situation is lived in Aragon, both at the regional level and in Zaragoza capital. For this reason, the national coordinator of the party, the Navarrese deputy Carlos Pérez-Nievas, traveled there on Friday in search of a solution.
Sources from Ciudadanos assure that it is the most complicated territory due to the internal rupture in the party there. They assure that the former Secretary of Organization, Fran Hervías (whom Teodoro García Egea has already signed to carry out the ‘OPA’ to Ciudadanos) has majority control of positions and that makes it very difficult to make firm decisions.
The fear, in fact, is that there will be an internal boycott that will make it difficult for the party to have candidates. In any case, the incorporation of the Vice Mayor of Zaragoza, Sara Fernández, to the ranks of the PP is “evidence”, according to what they say in the leadership. What is foreseeable is that the majority of councilors also do so because of his closeness to Jorge Azcón, with whom they have shared government and despite his jump to the regional candidacy.
Added to this situation two other leaks to the PP that Ciudadanos already take for granted: the deputy mayor of Oviedo, Ignacio Cuesta; and the one from Alicante, Mari Carmen Sánchez. These are the names that at this moment the orange executive counts on that will become part of the PP lists and, in fact, the party has already made a move by putting other candidates in front. In the case of Alicante, it will be the Councilor for Town Planning, Adrián Santos, who will attend the primaries.
It was Feijóo who assured days ago that 167 positions from Ciudadanos have already been transferred to his party. Actually, the vast majority (around 160) did so under the previous management, more than a year ago. In his stage there have been hardly any incorporations. The most notorious, that of the mayor of Badajoz, Ignacio Gragera. The orange party assures that the PP’s story of rout “is exaggerated & rdquor; and that “there are not so many people left to leave& rdquor ;. But the general feeling, at this moment, is that of a party turned into a real solar.
The difficult management of the Villacís crisis
The approach that Villacís made in a video (exploring in each municipality how to attend, including sharing lists with other platforms or parties, he was thinking of the PP although it did not come out of his mouth) is not new. Many previous charges have thought or raised it ‘sottovoce’ and even current leaders support it. But, in no case, as the vice mayor managed: two weeks after the general assembly and behind the management’s back.
“The narrative in the imaginary is what it is. That Villacís has wanted to go to the PP and has not been able to. That Ayuso does not want her in her ranks and that she has not had the ability to do it otherwise & rdquor ;, she harshly holds a relevant party position with a long history.
In the hard core of the vice mayor, on the other hand, those ghosts are shaken. They recognize the “little success & rdquor; of Villacís in his approach and not having calibrated the situation either internal to the PP, but they assure that she “did not intend to close anything off for herself& rdquor; and that her meeting with Bendodo responded to accept after many months “an invitation to a coffee & rdquor; to analyze the situation of the parties. Villacis He also agreed after the mediation of a former leader of Ciudadanos which is now in the Junta de Andalucía.