Sánchez precipitates the replacements after the departure of Lastra and has the PSOE in suspense

"In these cases, those who don't know speak and those of us who know don't speak," a noted socialist leader warned years ago to preserve the remodeling of equipment that a government president was designing at that time.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
19 July 2022 Tuesday 23:51
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Sánchez precipitates the replacements after the departure of Lastra and has the PSOE in suspense

"In these cases, those who don't know speak and those of us who know don't speak," a noted socialist leader warned years ago to preserve the remodeling of equipment that a government president was designing at that time.

And this is exactly what is happening now. In fact, some of those who are in the secret of the replacements that Pedro Sánchez wants to undertake in the PSOE, to recover the verve in the face of a new very complicated electoral cycle, are political godchildren of that noted party leader.

Sánchez opted yesterday to rush the changes in the socialist organization chart, after the day before Adriana Lastra announced by surprise her resignation as deputy general secretary of the PSOE. The socialist leader convened for next Saturday, also by surprise, the party's federal committee, its highest body between congresses, to ratify the changes that he wants to undertake in the organization.

Previously, that same Saturday and to comply with the statutory dictate, the PSOE executive is scheduled to meet, which will be the one that formally submits Sánchez's proposals to the federal committee for final ratification. Some proposals to which no internal response of any kind is expected. Just applause.

Waiting for the replacements to be revealed – before which Sánchez himself and his closest nucleus in Moncloa, among whom are Félix Bolaños, Óscar López or Antonio Hernando, are keeping absolute silence for now – everyone in the PSOE is remain in total uncertainty and expectation. In suspense. Above all, the possible victims of the movement carried out by Sánchez. "Everyone is on tenterhooks," admit members of the PSOE's own leadership.

"None of us know anything," confirms a socialist regional president. "We do not have the slightest indication, not an indirect call, nothing," testifies a minister.

Sánchez's claim, in any case, is to avoid some of the "dysfunctions" that were produced by the division of tasks in Ferraz between Adriana Lastra and the PSOE organization secretary, Santos Cerdán. Also the friction that socialist sources warned between Lastra and her substitute as spokesperson for the socialist group in Congress, Héctor Gómez, who took office last September. In addition, Sánchez wants to strengthen the coordination between Moncloa, the Government and Ferraz, both in electoral action and in communication.

At the last federal congress of the PSOE, held in Valencia in October 2021, Sánchez ratified Lastra and Cerdán in their positions, after the abrupt dismissal of José Luis Ábalos as secretary of organization, and his departure from the Government, three months earlier. But already in that congress, Sánchez promoted a greater connection between Moncloa, the Government and Ferraz, with the incorporation to the federal executive of the PSOE of up to six ministers. Specifically, Félix Bolaños, Isabel Rodríguez, María Jesús Montero, Carolina Darias, Diana Morant and Pilar Alegría. The latter is one of the emerging figures in the party.

The forecast that an electoral committee will be constituted to face the municipal and regional elections in May of next year, and the general elections scheduled for December 2023, with greater coordination between Moncloa and Ferraz, would not be something out of the ordinary either. . It must be taken into account that already in October 2018, Sánchez placed both José Luis Ábalos and Iván Redondo, then his chief of staff in Moncloa, as coordinators of the electoral committee established in Ferraz to prepare the municipal, regional and regional elections. European May 2019.

The only new incorporation revealed for now, as a quota of the Asturian federation for the federal executive of the PSOE, is that of Iván Fernández as a substitute for Lastra. This was agreed by Sánchez himself with the president of Asturias and leader of this federation, Adrián Barbón. Iván Fernández is deputy general secretary and head of political and institutional action of the Asturian socialist federation, as well as mayor of the municipality of Corvera.

Time is pressing for Sánchez, and the prospects are not promising for the PSOE, after its electoral debacle in Andalusia on June 19, and a change in the political cycle throughout Spain that Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the head of the PP encourages and that yesterday also certified the CIS of José Félix Tezanos.