Friday, March 29

Ciudadanos sinks and only saves the seat of its spokesman

Another setback for Ciudadanos, this time in the autonomous elections of Castilla y León where the worst omens have been fulfilled and the party of Inés Arrimadas has only managed to keep the seat of its candidate, Francisco Igea, and with great difficulty. Her poor results force her to go home. Although the party was very satisfied with the role played by the doctor, both in the campaign and –above all– in the two electoral debates, neither was the effort made by the entire leadership of the party, with Inés Arrimadas at the head, who has turned with him, it has been enough to break that unbridled tendency that the formation suffers towards its disappearance.

The PP wins the elections in Castilla y León but needs the extreme right to govern

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Citizens, who now had 12 deputies in the region after the door slammed by a deputy, has only saved the furniture in Valladolid, where Igea appeared. But there she loses two deputies. In the other provinces, in which two years ago it obtained between one and two representatives, it has collapsed. Its place is now occupied by Vox, which is expected to be the new government partner of the PP, which has managed to win over the PSOE. The desolation among the party leaders was not concealed.

In the party they knew how difficult this new challenge was at the polls, but they even dreamed of obtaining a minimum of three deputies to form a parliamentary group. But it could not be. The debacle has been incontestable. In 2019 Ciudadanos was the third political force and garnered almost 15% of the votes in the entire community. He was then able to choose between supporting the party with the most votes and the winner of the elections, the PSOE, or supporting the PP, which had been ruling the region for 35 years. Albert Rivera was clear about it and gave the order to agree with the PP of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, a leader who from the beginning had little empathy with the one who was his vice president. The clashes between the two in these two and a half years of legislature were constant.

The abrupt rupture of the coalition government by Mañueco left Igea dislocated and unarmed. Both leaders have crossed each other accusations of “disloyalty” and of “betraying” the agreement they sealed. Mañueco maintained that Igea was planning a motion of censure with the PSOE and that message, which he hastened to deny over and over again, permeated part of the citizenry who already considered the Arrimadas formation to be amortized.

The need to survive

This new electoral setback opens up a very dark panorama for the party that proclaims itself “liberal”, despite the fact that its leaders insist on the need to subsist to prevent “bipartisanship” from agreeing with “with the extremes”, the “nationalists” and the “populists”. Arrimadas herself does not stop repeating that there needs to be a “moderate, pro-European, focused and liberal” space, like the one that Citizens represents, to be “decisive” when it comes to forming governments.

However, the leader of the formation has once again come face to face with a cruel reality. Voters turn their backs on her. Perhaps because the speech that its leaders have been reeling off these months confuses them. “They have no ideology. They lurch,” is the most heard complaint against them, while the former party leader, Rivera himself, dedicates himself to putting more sticks in the wheels of his successor, whom he has not supported since she was elected.

With this panorama, the next electoral appointment must be placed, if there are no surprises, in Andalusia. And if these dismal results are repeated there, 2023 could be the date of the burial of a party that caressed being able to govern Spain.



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