Pedro Sánchez's electoral caravan stops this afternoon in Madrid, the epicenter of the Popular Party's territorial power. And the president of the central government keeps Isabel Díaz Ayuso's management of public health at the target of his criticism, at the rallies he is leading all over Spain. His Achilles heel, according to the socialists.
That's what Sánchez did again yesterday, with more reason, taking advantage of the event he held in Gijón with the president of Asturias, the socialist Adrián Barbón. "The regional president who spends the most per person in all of Spain is allocating to the national health system", he emphasized. Up to 2,000 euros per person, he stressed. Because he assured that healthcare, for the PSOE, is a right, and not a business as it is, in his opinion, for the PP. Where the socialists see "patients", the populists see "clients", he insisted, and denounced the policy of "cuts and privatisations" of the communities governed by the PP. With Madrid in the lead.
Sánchez reiterated that of the four communities with the least spending per inhabitant on healthcare, three are governed by the PP and none by the PSOE. And the first, he insisted, is Madrid, paradoxically the one with the highest level of income per capita.
"For this reason, won't it be simpler to go to vote on May 28 to defend public health, instead of having to demonstrate in the streets the next day against the cuts of the right when it governs?" demanded Sánchez. He thus referred to the protests and white tides that are manifested in Madrid against Ayuso's health management. "That's why the PSOE must be voted on May 28", he specified. That is why the first aspiration of the socialists is to regain the leadership of the left against the PP, which now holds Més Madrid.
Before closing the campaign tomorrow in Catalonia, Sánchez will today accompany the socialist candidate for the Community of Madrid, Juan Lobato, and the aspiring mayor of the capital, ex-minister Reyes Maroto, in an outdoor event in the auditorium of the forest park in the Entrevías neighborhood. An event in which the organization expects around 1,500 supporters to attend.
Despite the average capacity of this event in Madrid, Ferraz highlights the influx of militants and supporters at the rallies that Sánchez is leading in this campaign, as a symptom of electoral strength. Yesterday, 3,500 attendees attended the event in Gijón, after having gathered 6,000 people, according to their figures, at the rally in Badajoz the day before. Also 6,000 supporters went to the meeting in Valencia on Saturday.
The electoral prospects for the Socialists in Madrid, however, are nowhere near as promising as they augur in Ferraz for the Valencian Community, where they trust in the re-election of Ximo Puig. According to the trackings they have, the Botanic pact would add up to 55 seats on Sunday, a wide absolute majority, with the PSOE fighting for first place.
Sánchez avoided any reference to the scandal in Mojácar, in Almeria, where two PSOE candidates were arrested for alleged electoral fraud at the Gijón rally yesterday. But he did call on the PSOE to vote "with pride" and tried to mobilize the undecided. "The threats of involution are very true, very real, and we cannot stay at home", he warned, in view of the possible alliances of the PP and Vox to form governments.
And while Sánchez denounces the management of Ayuso in Madrid, yesterday it was the former president of the Spanish Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero who replicated his predecessor in Moncloa, José María Aznar, who insists, like Ayuso, that "ETA is alive ". "The PP does not come out of deception and shamelessness. Since almost 20 years ago he deceived all Spaniards with the attack of March 2004, he does not get out of deception and shamelessness", warned Zapatero.
"The truth is that ETA disappeared and that this attack was not by ETA, as they told us", he pointed out. And he asked the majority of citizens that "out of respect for the truth and coexistence, vote against deception and shamelessness".
