Without surprises and without star signings, given the urgency of times and circumstances, Pedro Sánchez will deploy practically all of his ministers on the socialist lists for the general elections on July 23, as he did in 2019. Again The criterion of hierarchy within the Government and the territory of origin of the ministers is established, in most cases, to locate the headliners and complete the electoral lists in each community or province. Although again with some internal pulse, as is the case again with the Aragonese federation led by the critic Javier Lambán.
After betting on Meritxell Batet in 2015, and on Margarita Robles in 2016, in the 2019 general elections it was Carmen Calvo who accompanied Pedro Sánchez as an electoral ticket for Madrid. The great unknown that remained to be revealed is who would head the Madrid list this time along with the Prime Minister. By hierarchy in the Executive, and discarded in any case the first vice president Nadia Calviño, who is independent and was never part of the PSOE electoral candidacies, the best placed was the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, who in 2019 occupied the fourth position on the list for Madrid. And so it will be: Ribera will occupy the number two position on the Madrid table, behind Sánchez, as confirmed by the PSOE leadership on Wednesday. The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, will occupy the fourth position, since they are rack lists that alternate men with women. Everything indicates that the third place will be occupied by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños.
Other socialist ministers who will occupy the headliners in their respective territories, according to forecasts, will be María Jesús Montero, head of the Treasury and deputy general secretary of the PSOE, for Seville; the Government spokesperson and Minister of Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, for Ciudad Real; the Minister of Health, José Miñones, for A Coruña; the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, for Valencia; the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, for Córdoba; or the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, for Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, will in turn head the list for Zaragoza, despite the fact that the still president of Aragon and leader of this socialist federation, Javier Lambán, now leaving after the 28-M elections, has wanted to make it clear his opposition to what he considers an imposition of Ferraz, since the bet of this territory is Óscar Galeano.
The Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, and the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, are also expected to join the socialist electoral lists for 23-J. The PSC is also pending confirmation of its provincial lists for the general ones. The candidacy for Barcelona was led in the 2019 general elections by the current president of the Congress, Meritxell Batet. On this occasion, the two PSC ministers, Miquel Iceta and Raquel Sánchez, are also scheduled to join the electoral boards.
The PSOE lists for these advanced generals will also incorporate regional presidents and mayors who will be evicted from their posts as a result of the 28-M elections, such as Francina Armengol for Baleales and Óscar Puente for Valladolid. The former vice secretary general of the PSOE Adriana Lastra will in turn lead the candidacy for Asturias, and the former minister and former secretary of organization of Ferraz, José Luis Ábalos, will also occupy a place on the list for Valencia.
Given the surprise electoral call for the generals announced by Sánchez after the defeat in the municipal and regional elections of 28-M, the federal leadership of the PSOE hastened to design an express process to approve this week both the candidacies for Congress and the Senate , such as the electoral program with which he will attend 23-J. The accelerated process to elaborate the electoral plates will start in any case with the proposals that the local assemblies and socialist provincial directorates will raise for their approval to the provincial committees, and these in turn to the autonomous executives. All of this, according to the schedule, until tomorrow, Thursday, July 8. Ferraz's federal list commission will issue its final opinion on the candidacies the following day, Friday, July 9. And the following day, Saturday July 10, the federal committee of the PSOE will definitively approve them.
