In 2019, the sum of votes of the two left-wing parties that govern the Valencia City Council (Compromís and PSPV) was 181,278 votes; Unides Podem stayed out of the Hemicycle. The three conservative formations (PP, Ciudadanos and Vox) reached 180,920 ballots, a difference of just 358 votes and one councilman, which shows how the progressive forces were on the verge of losing the capital.
In fact, the battle for València is presumed to be the great confrontation in the municipal elections of 2023. The popular ones have been with polls for some time that predict real possibilities of winning in the largest city of the Valencian Community, while Compromís knows that the result that he reaps in this square - where he got 30.5% of all the vote in all the municipal ballot boxes - will be the true thermometer that will measure the health of the coalition. For this reason, the desire and almost the obligation for Joan Ribó to repeat as a candidate to try to stop the popular María José Catalá.
In the popular ranks they know that they have a tailwind – the national scenario contaminates any electoral call – and in addition to the city of Valencia they have a “special interest” in achieving an electoral turnaround in Castellón and Elx. They believe that it is possible and that, adding Valencia and Alicante, they can take over the four most populated cities in the Valencian Community, which would ensure them great electoral success.
In the PP, which will soon specify the names of its main cartel heads -"the roadmap is established and in the next two months it will be transferred", they point out in the party-, they aspire to increase their dominance in the province of Alicante and to begin to add important mayoralties in the province of Valencia, where the main mayors are from the PSPV or Compromís.
For their part, the Socialists point out that repeating the results of 2019 – in the municipal elections they added almost 120,000 more votes than the PP – would be a great success. Management sources indicate that their main mayors "have great support" so they have no intention of making major changes: "What works is not going to be touched."
Not even in those municipalities where the mayor has been governing for a long time and is already old. The Socialists point out an interesting fact: the elderly are an important electoral target “and they vote for us a lot”.
In this line, the socialists believe that they will resist in the so-called red belt that surrounds Valencia and that after a few years in the hands of the PP -after the 2007 and 2011 elections- it was once again dyed in the colors of the brand of the fist and the pink with great triumphs in cities like Mislata, Torrent or Paterna.
This mattress of mayors, they explain at the socialist headquarters, allows them to focus on more specific "surgical" operations- for this reason, without wanting to reveal anything yet, they are preparing an operation in Alicante, designed with the local and provincial structure that, give clues, " It goes beyond a programmatic and candidacy issue.” A "very strong" setting in the main capital of the south will also have its replica in Valencia city.
Of the big four –València, Alicante, Elx and Castellón-, the Socialists have two mayoralties and aspire to compete in the other two.
They will find more difficulty in other places such as Torrevieja or Alzira, where, aware of the problems they have, they will bet on changing the trend with strong candidates. Another great objective of the PSPV is to conquer Onda, the largest population of Castellón that the popular ones control.
Commitment, in addition to aspiring to maintain the jewel in the crown that is the head and house, will seek to retain large municipalities such as Alzira, Catarroja, Crevillent, Carcaixent or Altea and "compete" for those rods of command that, during this legislature, have had what to share with socialists like Llíria or Paiporta during this legislature.
Again, efforts will focus on large cities and, not least, their metropolitan areas. The Valencian coalition has its best results in the capital, l'Horta Nord and the so-called Central Regions. The aspiration is to penetrate the interior of Castellón and have a greater presence in the south, always "respecting the specificities of each territory". That happens by increasing the number of lists.
For this, it is not ruled out to open up in certain places to confluences. With everything, from Més Compromís insists that in his party there is a maxim that is respected, which is municipal autonomy, so that each assembly will have the right to choose the way it considers most suitable to present itself to the elections.
Regardless of the objectives of each candidacy, the overall idea of Compromís is to improve the results in the councils, maintain progress agreements and try to wrest, together with the rest of the progressive forces, the Alicante Provincial Council from the PP.
Podem does bet on confluences, but they know that it will not be easy for them. In the organization they emphasize that since the last assembly that elevated Pilar Lima to the coordination of training, a process has been initiated to strengthen its municipal implementation with the idea of presenting the greatest number of local lists.
However, it is not even clear that their pre-electoral alliance with the US will be repeated and there are doubts about how the lack of agreement with the formation led by Rosa Pérez can affect them. In 2019, the EU maintained its acronym in some municipalities and achieved more than 55,000 votes and 120 councilors alone.
Thus, from Podem it is emphasized that, although it is desirable to reach agreements, they have the capacity to present a list alone. The main objectives are to once again have representation in the Valencia City Council and maintain or even expand the two mayors that they have in Alicante.
In Ciudadanos, the official message involves trying to defend (they know it's complicated) the seven mayorships it currently has (four of them after achieving an absolute majority) and trying to be decisive in some municipalities, as is happening now.
However, the most realistic believe that it will be difficult to maintain the same number of municipal lists that were presented in 2019 given the situation that the orange formation is going through. Surely their most powerful local candidates receive offers from the PP.
Vox is a great unknown at the municipal level. In 2019, its local implementation was still very punctual and it barely achieved 91,000 votes. In the regional ones, for comparison, it went up to 281,000. For this reason, they have been working for a long time setting up information tents on weekends in dozens of municipalities to attract supporters. In February, those responsible for the formation of Santiago Abascal predicted that they could triple the number of municipal candidates in 2023.
It will be very interesting to see how the evolution of this far-right formation, which in some regions in the south of Alicante was already approaching the PP's records in the general elections, generates problems for Carlos Mazón's PP.
