Diana Morant will be Ximo Puig's heir at the head of Valencian socialism. On March 24, she will be sworn in as general secretary of the extraordinary congress that the PSPV will hold in Benicàssim. Ferraz's mediation has eliminated the primary carnival. The three-way pact between the minister, Alejandro Soler and Carlos Fernández Bielsa has avoided confrontation at the polls, but leaves a bad taste in the mouths of militancy. You have been prevented from choosing which project of the three—excuse me: project? What project did each one champion? She—she preferred for the future.
It is so true that Morant was the most solid option and that the aversion to internal disputes - sorry, again: internal disputes in the current PSOE? - has made Pedro Sánchez curtail that debate. The minister would have resolved the situation with solvency, but the federal leadership has decided to save it by playing billiards—what if the black ball entered by mistake?—which provides us with a couple of conclusions.
Firstly, that the “Valencian route” sponsored by Puig was radial like the state railway map. The final station of the journey was in Chamartín. The most Valencian leader that the PSPV can boast of bequeaths a party whose replacement, without electricity but with stenographers, has been planned in Ferraz.
And the second, that the three provincial structures have turned out to be a real fiasco. A hindrance that the PSPV has been dragging on since 2008, when José Blanco imposed them on Galicians and Valencians in a measure against nature. Both had never been organized like this, except by regions, a formula that today remains subjugated to the provincial one.
The regional reality better adjusts to the plural Valencian Country, to the also diverse militancy of the party, and allows us to know the concerns of each corner of the territory. On the other hand, the provincial structure is established as a kind of viceroyalty that compromises the action of the general secretary of the PSPV. With special intensity, without a doubt, in the face of complex situations.
It has been verified very clearly in the (non)primary process. Long before the electoral defeat, all of Soler and Bielsa's movements—the visible and the hidden—were aimed at taking positions for the day after Puig. The legitimate ambition of both to succeed him collided when trying to agree on who had more support to achieve it. Like little ants they had recruited acolytes, here and there, thanks to the influence provided by provincial directorates as nineteenth-century as the deputations that inspired them.
You can be general secretary of the PSPV without first going through one of them. What's more, it is convenient to be one without having been there. Saying goodbye to them, subjecting them to their private sardine burial, would do Morant a great favor.
