Mónica García welcomes Isabel Díaz Ayuso upon her arrival at the Madrid Assembly.EUROPA PRESS (EUROPA PRESS)
The earthquake that the departure of Mónica García to the Ministry of Health represents for Madrid politics is presented this Monday without shame by Juan Lobato, leader of the socialists in the region: “None of us is stupid.” A new time is opening . Rooms are being reconfigured. “This step represents a change in dynamics.” Because the departure of opposition leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso from the government is an opportunity for the PSOE, a challenge for Más Madrid and a reason for joy for the PP. Quite a before and after, Manuela Bergerot (Argentina, 1976), García’s successor as regional spokesperson for Más Madrid, faces a major challenge. First, it will have to reorganize a group that will probably lose two of its leaders: the deputy Javier Padilla could accompany the leader in the ministry. At the same time, she has to build and expand an almost newborn party, as she is also its organizing secretary unless she resigns. And then it aims to rein in those who would have preferred alternative leadership.
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In the regional elections in May, only 5,453 votes separated Más Madrid from the PSOE. This narrow lead gave the Greens leadership of the opposition, with all the ornamental and media privileges that entails. The possibility of presenting itself to voters as a reference party in the progressive sector is back in play with García’s departure. If there is everything unknown in Más Madrid (will the new minister return as a candidate in 2027? Will the ministry serve to make the Madrid project visible? Will Bergerot fill her void?), there are no doubts in the PSOE. It’s Lobato’s big chance. Now or never.
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“It gives us more focus,” argues a veteran socialist with many years in Madrid politics behind him. “Now the economic issue will be more central than the health issue that Mónica promoted during the pandemic,” he adds about the specialties of the two politicians, who are technicians in the State Treasury and anesthesiologist, respectively.
The possibility that the composition of the central government would provide an opportunity for the PSOE in Madrid had been lingering in key socialist offices for weeks. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s team shared with Lobato’s entourage the analysis detailed by a second PSOE interlocutor as to whether García’s promotion to the ministry was appropriate (or not). The two parties agreed that the departure of the Más Madrid spokesman would benefit Lobato in his regional aspirations. And not just because the regional secretary stops competing for the spotlight with an experienced speaker, but starts competing with a newcomer like Bergerot to the post. Also because, according to the Socialists, García’s departure will have an impact on Ayuso.
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“Mónica is the one who made Díaz Ayuso grow,” they say in the PSOE of Madrid, where they are convinced that the leader of the PP confronted the leader of Más Madrid because their strategy was to attack an arch-enemy create that is able to mobilize conservative voters. “Without Monica,” they venture; “Ayuso loses a lot of potential.”
The Secretary General of the PSOE and President of the Government Pedro Sánchez together with the PSOE spokesman in the Madrid Assembly, Juan Lobato, on the first day of the investiture debate. Kiko Huesca (EFE)
Más Madrid loses it too. This match is not a perfect oil raft. In June, Pablo Gómez Perpinyà, founder of the organization, right-hand man of Íñigo Errejón and speaker of the Parliament at the time, who offered García the alternative in the assembly, resigned from all his positions when he learned that the leader had decided not to follow through to repeat autonomous designation as senator. The internal congress held this week has already brought the organization into a moment of “transition,” according to a source familiar with the inside of the party, which, he adds, will now face a “big challenge”: replacing García.
“With the existing difficulties, I think that Manuela [Bergerot] “This is a very good option,” says this interviewee. “Not to replace Mónica, because that is not necessary since Mónica will be very present in Madrid, she continues to lead the party and her ministry has great influence in Madrid… but to lead the new moment that “There will certainly be more corals “, he explains. “We were born [en 2019] with two very distinct leaders [Manuela Carmena e Íñigo Errejón] that they spoke out shortly after the elections; This gap was really complicated and it kept going up,” he adds.
A thesis that Bergerot defended this Monday in a press conference in the regional assembly.
“We will show that we are the alternative for the community,” said the new Más Madrid spokeswoman, who was born in Argentina in 1978 and came to Spain two years later with her political refugee parents. “We are a force that does not stop growing, consolidating and that has increased the number of city councilors fivefold,” recalls Bergerot, who has a degree in library science, archival science and documentation and a degree in information and documentation from the Complutense University Madrid has. “A party that now has a minister who takes care of the main concerns of the people of Madrid [la sanidad]“, he concluded, explaining that Más Madrid will maintain García’s belligerent tone towards Ayuso.
Because the confrontations between the two leaders were constant. For health policy. From the prosecutor. For the controversial contract that Díaz Ayuso’s brother received from a company he had contracted with the community. For all. And perhaps that’s why the Baroness and her team have been celebrating García’s departure for weeks in advance, which they are trying to sell as a personal success for Díaz Ayuso.
“He did not resist the melee with the president,” said Carlos Díaz-Pache, spokesman for the PP in Parliament, this Monday.
A similar argument to that of Alfonso Serrano, Díaz Ayuso’s number two, who made it to the list of all the speakers of the left opposition who have left the Chamber since the Baroness came to power in August 2019: Pablo Iglesias, Isa Serra and Alejandra Jacinto in Podemos; Íñigo Errejón and Mónica García in Más Madrid; and Ángel Gabilondo in the PSOE. There are six victims in five years. A reflection of what it takes to make politics from the left in Madrid, where the PP has ruled continuously for more than a quarter of a century and where Díaz Ayuso now has an absolute majority.
Errejón tried and fled.
Gabilondo, and he left.
Neither could Isa Serra.
Alejandra Jacinto came and the Madrid team threw her out.
He came to Pablo Iglesias and ended up cutting off his ponytail.Now M. García is packing his bags, faced with the impossibility of beating Ayuso. #I like fruits
— Alfonso Serrano (@SerranoAlfonso) November 20, 2023
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