The president of Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas, has announced that she will continue working on a unity candidacy to lead the party, something that, in her opinion, the deputy spokesperson in Congress, Edmundo Bal, was aware of before presenting his his own candidacy last week, and has assured that he will present his own list for the primaries in case Bal does not reconsider and does not withdraw his in order to "protect the party".
"Only in the event that Bal, my friend, my partner, my right hand, does not withdraw his candidacy, I will present my list to the assembly and I do so to prevent us from absurdly going to a pitched battle," Arrimadas warned in a round of press conference held this Monday in Madrid at the party headquarters.
Arrimadas has asked Bal, whom he has described as a "friend and right-hand man", to reconsider and withdraw his list for the primaries ahead of the extraordinary assembly in January with the aim of reaching a list of unity that he has defined as "more transversal and collegiate, without ceasing, with new profiles, new faces and new teams" and with "a strong component of the local and regional sphere" to face the first electoral challenge in May, that is, the municipal and regional elections.
"What our colleagues and candidates for the local and regional elections need is a united party," said the orange leader, who has asked to flee "infighting for the general elections", alluding to last Friday's announcement by the lawyer of the State on leave of absence from a candidacy that, in his opinion, has caused "surprise and frustration" among the militants.
After acknowledging "significant discrepancies" between her and her number two in Congress, to whom she has repeatedly launched conciliatory epithets, in relation to significant government laws such as the law of only yes is yes -which Bal wanted to endorse and she did not-, Arrimadas He has ensured that "there is no discrepancy that cannot be resolved or calmed down so that this does not lead to a pitched battle in the party." "Nothing can lead the party to break because our militants don't deserve it and Spain needs us," she added.
In any case, the liberal leader has been convinced, or at least confident, that the situation can be redirected shortly and the unitary list can be approved, although she has admitted that she does not know what support the candidacy launched in a way has " surprising" by Bal. "No, we cannot allow anything else", she has warned the militants.
For this reason, he has asserted that he will shortly speak with his partner, whom he has said he "admires a lot", and that he will not give any interview in the near future or send him messages through the media. "I don't want to turn this process into a media spectacle, I want to say things to my colleagues in private," Arrimadas argued.
These words came shortly after Bal himself, who also asked Arrimadas to step aside, lamented on Onda Cero that his party is perceived as "the little brother of the Popular Party" and bet on "ending" this image of the formation that aspires to lead. Bal pointed out that Ciudadanos is no longer perceived as a "useful" and "centrist" party, but as a party "subordinate to the PP, which can only agree to one side" and that has a "preferred partner", which is the popular ”. This, in his opinion "is not a liberal party."
Faced with these criticisms, Arrimadas, who has also alluded to the Trans law as a focus of discrepancies with his "right hand", has considered that Ciudadanos cannot be an "appendage to the PP" but "nor to the PSOE". "We have to be liberals", he has exclaimed himself.
