The socialist who was supposed to replace Minister Saiz in the Pamplona City Council resigns

The seismic wave of the earthquake caused in Pamplona by the pact between the PSN-PSOE and EH Bildu to unseat UPN from the mayor's office expands.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
26 December 2023 Tuesday 21:29
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The socialist who was supposed to replace Minister Saiz in the Pamplona City Council resigns

The seismic wave of the earthquake caused in Pamplona by the pact between the PSN-PSOE and EH Bildu to unseat UPN from the mayor's office expands. Yesterday he reached Tomás Rodríguez, the sixth candidate on the socialist list, who was to replace the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, as councilor, and who, however, resigned from taking office due to the "constant accusations and attacks by UPN and the mayor herself, Cristina Ibarrola.”

Rodríguez's shock occurred just two days before the scheduled date for his inauguration, tomorrow, when, just ten minutes later, he would have been in the position of voting in favor of the motion of censure against Ibarrola so that the Abertzale Joseba Asiron assumes the mayorship of the Navarrese capital thanks to the support of the socialists. A movement that, in addition to the UPN regionalists, has stirred up the PP, which yesterday, through the mouth of Elías Bendodo, described this commitment of the PSOE with the “heirs of ETA” as “infamy.”

The deputy secretary of regional policy was thus in charge of redoubling the pressure of the popular on the socialists to amend what they see as a historic bankruptcy that will have long consequences. “We ask the PSOE to rectify, that it is on time, not to make that big mistake and not to exceed that red line that will accompany it throughout Pedro Sánchez's entire political career,” said Bendodo, in full harmony with the request expressed by the leader of his party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in his recent meeting with the President of the Government.

Thus, the vacancy left by Saiz – who was the socialist spokesperson in the plenary session – when she was appointed minister has opened an internal crisis that the organizational secretary of the PSN-PSOE, Ramón Alzórriz, tried to close yesterday by pointing out the “continuous pressures exercised by UPN” on his own, which he defined as “typical of other times” and “totally questionable democratically.”

Although the next on the PSN list, which obtained five councilors in the municipal elections in May, was María José Blasco, who was the seventh, the record will jump to the eighth candidate, Miguel Matellanes, a 23-year-old young man from Pamplona who is a law student and Political Sciences.

All of this happens in the midst of a very rarefied atmosphere, with “signals on social networks,” according to Alzórriz, after the announcement of the PSOE pact with EH Bildu, which represents a change in the traditional alliances in Navarra.