The faithful to Inés Arrimadas have responded to the order launched by Edmundo Bal. This morning the list that closes the current president of the party was presented in Madrid, which will be headed by MEP Adrián Vázquez, who is running for future secretary general, and the Balearic regional deputy Patricia Guasp, who aspires to be the new spokesperson.
Vázquez and Guasp have appeared before the media in Carrera de San Jerónimo, supported by Arrimadas herself; the deputy in Congress Guillermo Díaz; the deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís; the deputies in Parliament Carlos Carrizosa and Nacho Martín Blanco; Madrid councilor Mariano Fuentes, and Carlos Pérez-Nievas, current coordinator of Ciudadanos, among others.
In his statements, Vázquez stressed that this candidacy, dubbed "Reborn your party", undertakes to reflect the conclusions of the refounding team, in which he himself has worked, in the next general assembly of the party and which are summarized in give a new impetus to Ciudadanos as a "central and liberal" formation so that, as the affiliates want, "it will be useful again".
The MEP has stressed that he "reaches out" to Bal and other colleagues, whom he will call today to "reach an agreement" and "complete" a list that, given the continuity that critics attribute to him as a result of the presence de Arrimadas in it, has defined it as "new and unity". "We have left gaps free to integrate everyone, there is no future without unity," Vázquez announced.
In a show of strength in the face of Bal's appearance before the media on Wednesday, Vázquez has been surrounded by numerous party officials from all over Spain, such as the mayor of Palencia, Mario Simón, with which he has sought to highlight the importance that Municipalism is going to have, as indicated by the MEP, in the new journey of Ciudadanos, which will be at stake in the local and regional elections in May, its political survival.
For her part, Guasp, who is running as a political spokesperson in the new two-headed structure of Ciudadanos, but who, as an autonomous parliamentarian, will not be able to dispute the leadership of Arrimadas in Congress, the true backdrop of the struggle that the formation is experiencing , has affirmed that his proposal flees from "personalisms" and wants to focus on teaming up. "This candidacy is transversal and stems from the process of listening to the re-foundation team throughout Spain," she argued.
"We have the challenge of reconnecting with our affiliates and with the Spanish who are tired of bipartisanship. That is why our candidacy does not consider changing the spokesperson in Congress. The refoundation was not about this, it is not about this, but about offering a future with a renewed candidacy whose leadership will give voice to the territories", explained Guasp, who has recognized the mistakes of the orange leadership in the past and has proposed an amendment: "We are committed to territorial autonomy and Ciudadanos is going to be a party much more transversal and less vertical".
In this sense, Guasp has referred to the letter from the Valencian deputy María Muñoz, who today has expressed herself in very harsh terms against Arrimadas, whom she has accused of "cheating" in the refoundation process to end up proposing some " cosmetic changes" in his candidacy so that "everything remains the same", for which he has ruled out joining it and, likewise, that of Edmundo Bal.
Despite the harshness of the accusations, Guasp wanted to "make it clear" that the list that Arrimadas closes is "an open, consensual and positive candidacy" in which "of course" Muñoz would also have a place, whom Bal proposed as new spokesperson in Congress in her deal offer to Arrimadas, ruled out as "non-negotiable" by the current president. "This is everyone's project, it is not anyone's project," assured Guasp, for whom between now and the VI general assembly in mid-January there is still time to reach consensus.
Regarding Arrimadas' recent meeting with the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Ciudadanos sources have indicated that in the meeting, which took place a few days ago after several telephone contacts, both leaders addressed the institutional crisis "opened by Pedro Sánchez" after promoting the elimination of the crime of sedition and the reform of embezzlement and "the government's attempt to control the Constitutional Court through the back door".
