The open fracture in Ciudadanos cannot be closed before the general assembly next January, in which the delegates will have to choose between the candidacy led by Edmundo Bal and the one supported by Inés Arrimadas.
Attempts to promote a rapprochement between the two with a view to agreeing on a unit list have been unsuccessful, and Bal has called the press today to explain new details of his candidacy, which he will officially present next week, when the deadline opens, from day 26 to 29, to formalize them.
"We are presenting ourselves with a renovation project, to reaffirm the re-founding, to make the party attractive to the affiliate and the voter," said Bal, who has announced that Santiago Saura, councilor in the City Council of Santiago, will accompany him as number two in his candidacy. Madrid, who aspires to be Secretary General, and the deputies Sara Giménez and María Carmen Martínez Granados. Later on, Bal said, there will be new presentations, not always by well-known personalities: "Young people, with talent, and who have told us with great enthusiasm that they want to join the project."
According to the deputy spokesperson for Ciudadanos in Congress, who is also the party's deputy general secretary, his list "did not seek confrontation", but Arrimadas, whose parliamentary skills he has praised and whom he has offered to continue as the group's parliamentary spokesperson, but in a rotating, has refused to join his candidacy. "The offer continues, those who go on your list are valuable colleagues and I want to integrate them into the executive," Bal insisted.
Meanwhile, sources close to the president of Ciudadanos assure that "unity will come after" the refoundation congress and that there will be "an alternative list of more weight", in which Arrimadas, as she herself announced a few days ago in a last gesture détente, will occupy last place.
Since the struggle between the two to lead the party after its agonizing refounding process was made public, aggravated by the distance due to some ideological positions in the votes in Congress, the distance between the two has not stopped growing. The "third way" that some leaders were looking for, such as Adrián Vázquez MEP, has not finally been found.
In the progressive taking of positions in the battle, the last movement to support Bal in his challenge was carried out on Tuesday by Francisco Igea, who after trying to get Arrimadas, whom he faced in the primaries of the last congress, in 2020, to throw the towel and give up joining a candidacy, announced that he would support the deputy spokesman.
But if Bal has Igea, a Numantino attorney in the Cortes of Castilla y León, and in principle with practically the entire parliamentary group in Congress, with the exception of Guillermo Díaz, Arrimadas has the support of Begoña Villacís, who has publicly ruled out that the deputy is the right person to rebuild the Ciudadanos project.
"I believe that Edmundo Bal has to be generous, just like Inés Arrimadas has been right now," said the deputy mayor of Madrid, referring to the resignation of the president to continue leading the party. In addition, Villacís criticized Bal's "veto" that Arrimadas can continue as spokesman in Congress, which had been the condition imposed by him, who also offered to stop being deputy spokesman, to negotiate an armistice.
Bal's first proposal, which was left aside yesterday in a last attempt to rapprochement, consisted of both he and Arrimadas giving up being the most visible face of Ciudadanos in Congress and handing over the position of spokesperson to deputy María Muñoz, economic manager of the parliamentary group, who would also have headed a hypothetical unity list. But the Arrimadas team considered it "non-negotiable" and, for the moment, Muñoz has not joined Bal's list.
If there is no twist in the script, very unlikely right now, although Arrimadas has assured today that there is still time, the swords will remain high until next January: on the 9th and 10th it will be decided in primaries which is the most exciting project to the militancy, that during the following weekend will vote in the general assembly the new statutes of the liberal formation.
The background of the crisis, beyond the ideological disagreements (Bal is in favor of Ciudadanos being a hinge that opens to the right and left and accuses Arrimadas of following the PP), has to do with renewal and the possibilities of revive the party, sunk in the polls after its successive electoral failures, before public opinion.
“We do not want to be subordinate to any other political option. Our project is one of utility and pragmatism, the offer of the liberal and progressive center of this country. I speak to affiliates to boldly speak up on our issues. We want to attract conservatives and social democrats from moderation who are throwing themselves into the arms of extremists and separatists", exclaimed Bal, who intends to "open up the party to members" and criticizes the "ivory tower" in which He has installed the orange dome, in his opinion, in recent times.
