The six candidates for the Ciudadanos primary, from left to right and bottom to top: Edmundo Bal, Patricia Guasp, Adrián Vázquez, Marcos Morales, Santiago Saura and Laura Alves.
Ciudadanos will end this week with a new leader and renewed statutes, which will be the culmination of the party’s re-founding process that began in July. Seven days, during which the three candidatures seeking leadership of the party have plunged into a deep crisis for two years, will rush to the last minute to win the votes of the 7,642 affiliates called to participate in the internal electoral process , which is held on Wednesday and Thursday. Since the campaign began – last Monday – they have traveled hundreds of kilometers, attending events with supporters, spreading messages on social media and exchanging allegations between the two sides. In particular, whether your project is a real renovation or the role that outgoing President Inés Arrimadas will play after the General Assembly scheduled for the weekend. A crucial conclave for Cs where 400 representatives confirm the future leadership team and approve the new presentations on statutes and values.
The first obstacle faced by primary candidates is to mobilize members who have seen the formation lose vote after vote and are on the ground in the elections. “People are already back to everything as it is,” says a board member. In March 2020, when Arrimadas defeated Francisco Igea in the last primary, turnout was 76.91%. It now remains to be seen how much the affiliates will mobilize the three controversial candidatures who still have the final sprint to victory on Thursday.
All these days, in order to get the widest possible support, the candidates have been moving between the groups spread across the territory, either with calls, via WhatsApp or having lunches and dinners with the militants. The opponents present themselves with a double voice, since both the party leader – the political spokesman – and his number two – the Secretary General, who takes care of the organic part – are determined. Below the combo is completed by about twenty names that will form the future Cs board based on the winners list. However, not all candidatures appear with the same clout in the internal elections, as the number of approvals collected before the campaign varied significantly.
Patricia Guasp and Adrián Vázquez (1,367 recommendations). The candidacy Your party will be reborn, starting as a favorite by getting the most referrals. Patricia Guasp, coordinator of Cs in the Balearic Islands and party spokesperson in the autonomous parliament, aspires to the position of political spokesperson; while Adrián Vázquez, leader of the citizens’ group in Brussels, becomes secretary-general. They are two of the eight members who spearheaded the reorganization, a strength they have harnessed by embracing the ability to “regenerate” the party and start the year on a clean sheet.
Patricia Guasp and Adrián Vázquez after Wednesday’s first debate in Barcelona.
“We’re betting on a radically different way of doing things, with a radical change in faces and ways of doing things, but we’ve been in the party for years, so at the same time we can reflect on this break with the past. or at least with the mistakes that were made,” Vázquez said in Zaragoza this Sunday. His candidacy has reiterated that the new leadership must focus its efforts on regional and local elections (and shelve the general election debate) with a “new vehicle” to survive after the May 28 elections. Arrimadas’ endorsement of that list, in which he ranks last, has led many to see this candidacy as the “pro-government” candidacy and serving the interests of the president, who they guarantee will remain spokesman in Congress will stay.
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Edmundo Bal and Santiago Saura (679 recommendations). With half support, the Ciudadanos candidacy restarts, composed of Cs Parliamentary Speaker Edmundo Bal and Madrid City Councilor Santiago Saura, in the formation since 2006. Saura is running for the post of Secretary General and until now He was the number two by Begoña Villacís, although the vice mayor supports Guasp and Vázquez. Bal entered the leadership struggle after defying Arrimadas to continue to order the party to “avoid his disappearance.” In his quest to become a political spokesman, Bal defends an “other discourse” that returns Cs to his “essence”, with an identity that leans more centre-left. Many of the officials unhappy with the President’s leadership are on her side, as are the majority of MPs, with the exception of Guillermo Díaz.
Santiago Saura and Edmundo Bal this Saturday in Barcelona at a campaign event.
“The start-up will regain that entrepreneurial spirit of looking to the future but remembering tradition. We will destroy the ivory towers in which the party’s current leadership has taken refuge,” Bal said at a campaign event in Valladolid this Sunday, with Igea also on his side. Though they consider Arrimadas a “major political asset,” the candidates understand that she must step down as speaker, and they accuse the candidacy, which the president is ending, of falling short of their plans, an offensive they have launched in recent days have intensified. Up front, they have what they call “continuists,” since both Bal and other lawmakers were on the party executive on his ballot. The speaker was the head of the Cs list for the May 2021 elections in the Autonomous Community of Madrid and did not win a single seat.
Marcos Morales and Laura Alves. (142 guarantees). The young Marcos Morales and Laura Alves, two great unknowns within the party, entered the primaries’ race by running under the name La base del cambio. Morales, who wants to become a political spokesman, is a member of the grassroots, while Alves is a councilor in the El Álamo (Madrid) city council in the struggle for secretary-general. With little prospect of success, his list represents the weariness of those who feel the previous lists represent a “continuity” with the previous tier.
Marcos Morales and Laura Alves, during the presentation of their list, this Tuesday in Madrid.Citizens
They start on a low budget so their tour was much more limited. “I ask you to trust The Base of Change, which is the only real alternative that can get us out of this critical situation and which proposes to build the project from the basics, without egos, without personalism and without real solutions”, said Alves during the debate before the three candidates for the post of secretary-general on Wednesday in Barcelona.
The winners will present themselves at the Society’s General Assembly next weekend. Later they will face the extremely difficult challenge of building an organization badly wounded by both the internal war and the election results. The exam on May 28 will give you an idea of your chances of survival.
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