Throughout the history of socialism it has always been said that when the Madrid federation sneezes, the entire PSOE gets cold. It may be because it was in a central tavern in the capital where the party was founded in 1879, although its inaugural congress was held in Barcelona. Or it will be because in the past, as now, Madrid is the nerve center of politics. Or it could be because the different federal leaderships always believed that the conquest of institutional power in Madrid was a national cause. Namely.
Legend has it that Pablo Iglesias, founder of the party, lamented on his deathbed that he had not been able to fix the organization in Madrid and also that, at the end of the 70s of the last century, the Catalan socialist Josep Maria Triginer, advisor to Josep Tarradellas used a crisis in the defunct Madrid Socialist Federation as an excuse to not attend a meeting before the president of the Generalitat. “If that’s why, you don’t need to go. The socialists of Madrid have been in crisis since 1931,” the honorable molt.
The spasm of the resignation of Juan Lobato as general secretary of Madrid socialism and the reasons that have pushed him to do so have convulsed Pedro Sánchez’s party in the days prior to its 41st Federal Congress, which is held under the motto “Spain advances through left”. The truth is that the socialists were already boiling long before Lobato’s abrupt resignation. For Aldama, for Begoña Gómez’s advisor, for the accusation of Sánchez’s brother, for that of the attorney general and for a string of robes turned into the true political opposition.
It has been impossible for those on Ferraz Street to shield themselves from news outside the conclave. In fact, during the early hours of Friday, all eyes and ears were focused on what was happening in Madrid’s Plaza de las Salesas, headquarters of the Supreme Court, where Lobato was testifying as a witness in the case against the State Attorney General. , Álvaro García Ortiz, for the WhatsApp messages he exchanged with Óscar López’s former chief of staff and formalized in a notary office to cover his back against the leak of Ayuso’s boyfriend’s personal data.
And while the early risers were being accredited, it became known that Lobato’s statement, for many of those present, “had given birth to a mouse.” A “buffoonery”, in the words of one socialist minister, for whom the publication of the controversial WhatsApp messages “not only does not provide any evidence that the Moncloa had the controversial email before the media, but that Pilar Sánchez Acera was in them. “is cautious and alert that personal data is not disseminated.”
“He has ended his political career because of this. The only thing that all this shows is that we had a very unsavvy leader in Madrid,” adds the same interlocutor. Another minister shows absolute certainty that the thread that Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the Madrid right intend to establish between the Moncloa and the Prosecutor’s Office “never existed”, that “there was no revelation of any secrets” and that the email that was crossed had already been published earlier by the media.
Not everyone is so clear about it, but no one will express it this way during this weekend in which the socialists will do nothing more than close ranks with Pedro Sánchez and his Government in the face of the judicial, political and media offensive of the right. So much so that it is taken for granted that the ideological debate will take a second, third or fourth place. Also that of the amendments on regional financing after the president of the Generalitat has worked hard to convince the different barons that “Catatunya is back to stay.”
“We must save Illa and the pact with ERC,” recognizes one of the 1,000 delegates who will participate in the conclave, who also ventures that with the contributions of the federations an attempt will be made to remedy the absence of any reference to nuclear issues such as memory. democracy or immigration.
This weekend is the first Federal Congress of the PSOE that Felipe González, the first general secretary that the party had already in democracy, will not attend. The man who was president of the Government of Spain for 14 years declined the invitation which, according to his story, came when he had already planned a trip outside of Spain. Whether true or not, the management wanted, with the presence of Manuel Chaves and Pepe Griñán this Saturday in the plenary session, to explain that not everything is tension, nor criticism, nor offense between the different generations. The two former presidents of the Board return to the PSOE after years of ostracism due to the ERE ruling. And they do so delighted that their party reserves for them on this occasion the position that they should never have lost and thus reconciles with its past.
Those who will not be missing in the interventions of those who speak between today and tomorrow, according to what Vice President María Jesús Montero announced this Friday, will be reproaches against Feijóo and his form of opposition. Never in Spain, as until now, have so many red lines been crossed in the legitimate political combat, and what the socialists see in the president of the PP “is a coup speech” against their general secretary.
The also ‘number two’ of the PSOE spoke like this in a meeting with the media together with the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, and the general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE and socialist spokesperson in the Senate, Juan Espadas, within the framework of a prior visit to the congress venue. Coup plotter? He was referring to some statements by Feijóo in which he encouraged the PSOE to fire Sánchez and took the opportunity to remember that the general secretary is elected by all its members because “the PSOE is a democratic party. And we also take it to a gala.”
Changes in different federations
What they want at all costs, in everything regarding the Lobato matter and the accusation of the attorney general, is that no one deviates from the origin of this case, and that it is the procedural situation of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s boyfriend, who “lies about the situation of his partner” and about the clarifications that he has not yet given regarding the penthouse in which he lives, which was allegedly paid for with resources from a tax fraud already confessed by himself.
All of this was not expected to be included in the script of a Congress convened, above all, to rethink the political project of the PSOE – something that remains pending – and to re-elect Sánchez for the fourth time as general secretary so that there is no doubt that he will continue to be in charge. . Yet there it is, in all the delegates’ conversations. First, it was inevitable that the organization would reduce the pageantry and partying, like the American conventions of the Democrats, as a consequence of the DANA tragedy as it passed through Valencia. And with the departure of Lobato from the general secretary of the PSOE in Madrid, the debate also precipitates on the replacement of several territorial leaderships that Ferraz intended to stop until the beginning of the year. Madrid will not be the only federation where there will be changes, as elDiario.es anticipated months ago.
Where major modifications are not expected is in the Federal Executive, beyond some incorporations in the members from the territories. Sánchez will maintain his current hard core, including María Jesús Montero in the deputy secretary general and Santos Cerdán in Organization, despite the fact that they have been accused in court by the allegedly corrupt Aldama.
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