The malaise that underlies a significant part of classical Valencianism, seasoned today with the various sauces that make up Compromís, is summed up in the way of facing the transcendental elections to Les Corts on May 28, the first without Mónica Oltra —a magnet for votes— as the headliner and indisputable benchmark.
Everything red. Red Hot. This is how the coalition strategists have designed the most decisive campaign of their lives. With a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, Joan Baldoví, who continues in Congress under the argument that this seat allows him to compete in visibility with Ximo Puig, Héctor Illueca or Carlos Mazón, who have an institutional platform.
The sporadic appearances in the state-level media and in weighty parliamentary debates such as the recent motion of no confidence provide —according to the Compromís gurus— an incomparable speaker for the promotion of Baldo as presidential candidate. They argue that giving up that asset would be absurd and that, in fact, it should be squeezed as much as possible.
Whether the theory in question is correct or not, we will know on the night of the proceedings, for which there are barely 60 days left, but it is still striking coming from a force that claims to be of strict Valencian obedience and is presumed to be self-centered, that is, capable of to interpret the world from the Valencian Country.
Instead, Compromís lives with one foot here and the other there. With one at home and the other at Villa y Corte. Increasingly closely linked to Más Madrid, to the point of looking like Siamese twins. Assuming, ultimately, that Valencian politics does not operate in its own key, but externally. That important things are decided in Madrid. That everything is Madrid. And so, if Mazón invites Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the Fallas and Illueca welcomes Irene Montero with open arms, Baldoví does the same with Íñigo Errejón.
Because, unfortunately, Compromís divorced from the Valencian media a long time ago. He has decided that he cares very little about them. There is no other political brand that feels so mistreated by them. For public and private. For progressives and conservatives. For writing, radio and television. For all.
And in it they are. Trusting his luck to some funny seconds in El Intermedio and to an ingenious intervention in the stands of the San Jerónimo race, where Compromís, to be honest, puts much more effort into the survival of the coalition government than the interested parties themselves. It would be said that Baldoví is the perfect synthesis of PSOE and Unidas Podemos. He serves as a sample of his abstention in the reform of the "only yes in yes" law, the one in which socialists and purples voted separately.
What is certain is that, of the four great forces that will compete in the Valencian elections, Compromís is the one that faces the greatest challenge. It is the only one of them that, foreseeably, will obtain less support than in 2019. Not only that. Without Oltra, the hole that the coalition drags in the Alicante constituency threatens to widen even more.
It is right there, and especially in the four southernmost regions, where it would be convenient to insist ad nauseam on the advisability of blindly trusting Baldoví as one trusted Oltra. Stepping on the ground Presenting government proposals like the ones that Baldoví presents every Monday for weeks, before emigrating to Madrid for a few days, at the headquarters in Valencia.
No one doubts that Congress is a magnificent speaker for any political party. However, it is difficult to imagine the candidate for the Lehendakaritza of the PNV or EH Bildu maintaining the seat there months or weeks after an election. Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira himself stood in the 2004 Spanish elections, thanks to which ERC obtained eight deputies, but did not even take possession of the minutes. His political objectives were in other latitudes.
On the contrary, since the announcement of its presentation to the Compromís primaries, verbalized any given noon on La Sexta a few meters from Puerta del Sol, it has become clear that the Compromís campaign, led by Baldoví, passes through Madrid. By the Madrid media.
While Puig, as full-time president, and Mazón, as presidential candidate since time immemorial, barely left the Valencian Country, Baldoví continues to come and go to Madrid. He may be a sweep among the AVE travelers and even among the residents of Chamberí, but his game is not played there. It is played in Benialí and, above all, in Almoradí.
