Ciudadanos wants to tickle Carlos Mazón and differentiate himself from the Valencian PP one year after the regional and municipal elections. And it even poses challenges, in this case regarding the controversy over "nationalities".
The guideline that has reached the Valencian Community from the national leadership is that, if there is no change of position at the last minute, Ciudadanos will appear alone in the 2023 elections despite the siren songs that, they say, come from the PP . A result in which Cs remains at the gates of Parliament and that three or four points (between 75,000 and 100,000 votes) subtract from the right-wing bloc (PP and Vox) greatly complicates the electoral overturn that Mazón and his people are seeking.
This decision to "defend their own project" and seek their space is part of the latest movement of the oranges who want to wear down the popular ones for allegedly "having converted to nationalism" and leaving them alone in defending a country "without first-class territories and second". In that tone, the spokesman for Cs in Congress, Edmundo Val, expressed himself yesterday to defend the reform of article 2 that the leader of his party, Inés Arrimadas, has proposed.
From Citizens of the Valencian Community they believe that the PP, with its words about nationalities "is giving wings to nationalisms". They refer to the statements of their general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, who, in an interview in the newspaper El Mundo, defended "Catalan nationality". Some words that, by the way, in the PPCV recall that Bendodo himself rectified and that Feijóo tried to settle by ensuring that Spain "is not a multinational state."
Precisely these second statements are welcomed in the Valencian PP to highlight that, despite the desire of Citizens to gain prominence, "there is no debate in the PP" about nations and nationalities. And less in the Valencian PP.
In the Valencian Community, and they know it in the popular ones and also the orange ones, the debate on identity, Valencianism/regionalism and the ghost of Catalanism generates rejections and adhesions. Furthermore, each time the electoral cycle approaches, the confrontation on these issues increases.
In fact, with the arrival of Carlos Mazón and especially María José Català as the general secretary of the party, the Valencian PP redoubled its criticism of the Government for what it understood to be concessions to nationalism. Criticism of the Consell's language policy and even of the Valencian Academy of Language, AVL, (an institution they themselves created) also increased. It is true that, with the arrival of the former president of the Xunta de Galicia to the national presidency of the party, the tone has moderated.
In this context, and also seeking differentiation from the formation that threatens to engulf them, Ciudadanos will seek to highlight the contradictions of the PP and establish itself, as the spokeswoman for Ciudadanos in Les Corts, Ruth Merino, indicated, as "the only party that guarantees equality of all Spaniards, wherever they live".
Yesterday, in statements to La Vanguardia, the Cs trustee lamented that "bipartisanship has perverted the term 'nationalities', included in the Constitution at a given historical and social moment, to satisfy nationalist movements in exchange for reaching or staying in the power".
"Decades giving wings to the unjust privileges of the nationalists have created first-class and second-class communities, a reality that Feijóo's PP intends to aggravate even more," he pointed out.
For the leader of Cs, "the new PP is the same as the old, the only difference is that they no longer hide. They speak openly of a multinational Spain in which, in their idea of a nation, the privileges of some autonomies will prevail while others are harmed."
And before this, he wonders: "What is the PP of Mazón? Is he going to stand up to his boss to defend the equality of Valencians against the rest of the Spanish or is he going to show his true face by lining up with Feijóo and bowing his head while the Valencian Community continues to be underfunded and undervalued?
For this reason, Merino would like to hear Mazón's opinion, "let him portray himself and say with whom the PPCV is going to position himself: with the Valencians or with the independence interests." And he reiterates the question: "Does Mazón recognize that there is a Catalan 'nationality' as Feijóo defends?"
Despite the criticism, in the autonomous leadership of the PP they are clear that their position is the one established by article 2 of the Constitution that Cs wants to modify and the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Community. Without debates or internal discomforts despite the change in leadership.
