Ximo Puig announced a week ago that he was taking a step back, that he will leave the leadership of the PSPV and that another team must take the reins of the party in an upcoming congress. After eleven years at the head of the second Spanish federation, and eight as president of the Generalitat, the most federalist baron of the PSOE also leaves his seat in the Corts Valencianes to begin a new stage outside the Valencian Community. This interview took place last Friday.
When did you decide to take a step back as leader of the PSPV?
It is a reflection process that has lasted a few months, but from the same night of March 28 I knew that I had to follow an itinerary that had to end in the renewal of the PSPV. Being clear that the stability of the process had to be guaranteed, because the results supported a clear outcome of the PSPV. That itinerary involved facing 23-J, the formation of the new Government and once the legislature had already begun, it was time to take that step back and prepare the party for 2027.
After 28-M you even said that you wanted to lead the opposition to the PP and Vox this term. Was there any pressure to encourage you to take that step back?
There was no pressure from anything or anyone. What was a requirement was to generate certainty. We could not, after the elections, open a process of instability in the party. It is true that I could be leading the opposition, but it is not the best for the PSPV.
What are you going to do now? Will he remain a senator or will he go to Paris as an OECD ambassador?
I believe that everything has its time. I have wanted to place times as a basic situation in my political work. In the coming months I will continue acting as general secretary of the PSPV until the congress and with my work as a senator. Any decision about my future is waiting for the PSPV congress to pass, because my priority is for the socialists to hold a great congress.
Eleven years at the head of the PSPV. What would you highlight as a great achievement in the Valencian federation?
Having achieved that the PSPV represents political centrality in the Valencian Community; It is the party that built autonomy and is essential. Internally, we have achieved a level of coexistence and common vision that was difficult at the beginning of my mandate, and must be preserved. The first survey that I saw as general secretary gave us 15%, with the risk of being bypassed by other leftist forces; Now we are at 30% effective voting in regional elections and 32% in general. We are the hegemonic force of the left.
What pending subject has been left?
To be the hegemonic force of the Valencian Community, not only of the left. A political and cultural hegemony of progressive values in Valencian society.
You have tried to define a federal vision in the PSOE, where a strong Jacobin vision coexists despite the Granada Declaration. Have you heard him?
I think that the federalists of the PSOE are in a good moment seeing the latest CIS survey, federalism has gained positions against the centralists and the independentists. The federal route has more support, and is also a historic opportunity; the embodiment of the Constitutional fact of Spain, a vision that is more in line with real Spain.
The PSOE now seems to be assuming that plurality with much more intensity than in the past. But it seems that it is the facts, such as the dialogue with Catalonia, that have forced it. Does reality prevail?
Spain is much more similar to this dynamic that is currently taking place than to previous dynamics. The PSOE has the great virtue of understanding that centralism is not intelligent, it is not the solution for Spain. And it is not about an identity debate, it is about talking about the redistribution of power, the fair redistribution of resources and wealth.
Compared to what is happening in many countries in Europe, here it seems that social democracy better supports the rise of the extreme right.
After the failure of neoliberalism, social democracy has been strengthened, as has been seen with the decisions of the European Union after the pandemic, nothing to do with the financial crisis of 2008. However, the fact that social democratic policies have offered a better response does not It corresponds to the health of the social democratic parties. Neoliberalism has managed to move towards populism, in some aspects delirious and captivating, and therein lies the great challenge of social democracy. In any case, democratic socialism is better in Spain than in other countries, it is more competitive and has known how to stop the extreme right. And Pedro Sánchez is, surely, the most reputable social democratic leader in Europe.
You talked about mistakes made by the PSPV on 28-M. What was he referring to?
We should have made more progress in the Valencianization of the political space. When you go to regional elections and finally a definition is imposed on issues that have nothing to do with the regional level, it means that we have done something wrong. This even affects the media sphere. I believed that the strength of the management was decisive when evaluating a government and obtaining an electoral result, and that has not been the case. That's shortsighted on my part.
What is surprising is that the PSPV and yourself took six months to make this self-criticism
I think that this is normal due to the political cycle, think that we had to immediately face another electoral campaign, and we have subsequently experienced a focus located in Spanish politics. Nor is it about doing "harakiri", because the PSPV has improved its results, something that has not happened in other autonomies. Obviously, in the end we have not joined forces to govern and that is, in the end, what affects us.
Will self-criticism continue?
Of course, and we must continue to interpret what happened well. But in 2024 we must have the initiative and prepare the way to win in 2027.
How do you rate the role played by Compromís y Unides Podemos?
Let's do justice; His contribution in 2015 was decisive, and that must be emphasized. Without them there would have been no change. I positively value what the co-management of diversity has been. There are things we would have done better, no doubt, but things worked reasonably well. Afterwards Compromís lost almost one hundred thousand votes and Unides Podem lost one hundred and thirty thousand. They too must reflect, but the context and a campaign that was activated nationally did not benefit Compromís, and the wars in Podemos demobilized many people.
In these years, it has seemed that the leadership of the PSOE has not been on the side of the PSPV on key issues such as financing, an issue that now seems that it will be addressed. Have you missed that support?
In 2014, with Mariano Rajoy's absolute majority, the mechanism to change the financing model, which had expired since that year, was not activated. And I understand that it is not easy. We see it now: the PP talks about the urgency of changing the model but they do not have a model. Which is it? The one from Andalusia, Madrid or Galicia? To reach an agreement there must be a clear desire for dialogue, which, at the moment, I see as impossible. Look at the issue of the CGPJ, where they are incapable of reaching agreements on that. How will it be on financing? The PP should sit down and talk with the Government so that this change of model is possible. What cannot be done is that in the autonomies of the PP and Vox, taxes are removed from the rich and that the Government is required to help with the taxes of all Spaniards to cover the hole that they themselves have created. The new model must be associated with a new fiscal policy that avoids fiscal dumping in Spain.
But regardless of the model, wouldn't you have liked to have had support in the years in which you did not rest demanding greater attention to Valencian problems?
We would all always like to have more support, but I'm not complaining; on the contrary. On important issues there have been different dialectics but there have been basic agreements. Since Sánchez's victory until now we have not achieved a change in financing, but we have achieved more resources than in all history, and the pandemic has been handled with direct aid.
You talk about avoiding internal wars within the PSPV as in the past. How can it be avoided?
Internal cohesion is a requirement, not a guarantee. We must learn from the mistakes of the past. We have arrived united and everyone who wants to contribute must do so. What you cannot do is generate exclusions that end up being sterile. We have good leadership in the organization and we can generate a very powerful team, beyond personal ambitions.
With you, the PSPV is more PSPV than PSOE, more Valencian, federal and demanding than in the past. Is that legacy at risk?
I don't think so. I will try to help, but understand that my role has reached this point, I take a step back. And I already told you that I am not going to tutor this trip. The PSPV is a chain and each of us is a link, and now comes another link. Its 17,000 militants, who represent almost a million voters in the general elections, know how to make their decisions. This party must be open and capillarized in society, evolving to achieve a social majority in 2027.
Is Diana Morant the right person to sustain that legacy?
This is a decision of the PSPV militants. I have the best opinion of the minister, but any assessment can have harmful connotations. I am just another militant. I just have to help generate the best scenario for Congress to be a lever for 2027, because the road is not going to be easy and we can win.
You have said that you are not going to supervise the PSPV renewal process. Is the PSOE leadership going to do it?
There won't be either. Nobody is going to protect the change, the militants will decide it with a question: how can we best reach 2027 to be the majority party in the Valencian Community? That is the question.
Is the PSPV negotiating with the Government to alleviate the policies of, for example, cuts by the PP and Vox in Valencian and Valencian social and cultural spheres?
Yes, and we are already doing it. In social matters, the policies will reach all of Spain, but there will be a specific focus on the Valencian Community in cultural and linguistic matters. The extreme right, inserted in the government, has come to fight the cultural battle and has directly targeted intellectuals, poets, writers, musicians; and socialists must guarantee cultural and language plurality, which is a requirement of Spain, where not only Spanish is spoken. And now there are new threats to the Valencian, serious ones, and we must face that.
