In his closing speech at the federal congress of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez made seven direct references to the importance of winning the regional elections of 2027 and eight to the “denialist governments” that came out of the polls in 2023 and from which he intends to seize power. The message is clear. Ferraz wants to remove a good handful of territorial leaderships that he does not consider competitive to ensure that the party arrives this time with options to recover, at least, part of the power lost a year and a half ago in favor of the right.
In the president’s team they do not forget that the setback in the municipal and regional elections of May 23 was on the verge of even defeating the Sánchez Government after a campaign of total polarization in which the national message overshadowed the slightest debate in the territories. The almost absolute loss of all the autonomous governments held by the socialists, with the exception of Asturias, Navarra and Castilla-La Mancha, as well as the vast majority of large provincial capitals, shook the foundations of Moncloa even then. To such an extent that this electoral disaster led to the advancement of the general elections the next day, a matchball that the leader of the PSOE won again, as usual, in extremis.
Several conclusions were drawn within the party from that defeat. The first was that a conservative wave of rejection of the coalition government with Unidas Podemos swept away several solvent regional executives, such as Ximo Puig in Valencia, Francina Armengol in the Balearic Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres in the Canary Islands or the by Guillermo Fernández Vara in Extremadura. But also that other territories did not have solid candidates to be real alternatives for government. And that, mixed with some pending reckoning in the always hectic organic world of the socialists, is behind the movements of the party leadership.
“Our main priority will be to win the municipal and regional elections of 2027 and return to govern throughout Spain. That will be our absolute priority. And we are all going to have to give our all to get it. The grassroots militants, the colleagues with institutional positions and, in the party, the members of the new Federal Executive that is starting up today. And, of course, myself,” Pedro Sánchez warned in a message that sounded like a warning to sailors.
They maintain in Ferraz that either the PSOE manages to build attractive electoral offers that allow it to recover ground, or the socialists will be condemned to irrelevance in some key places from a political point of view. And one of the main examples is Madrid, a true black hole for the socialists in the last 30 years. Today, the PSOE is not even the main opposition force either in the city council or in the Community.
The conviction that Juan Lobato could not again be the PSOE’s proposal for a position as complicated as facing Isabel Díaz Ayuso is what is behind the implosion once again of the Madrid federation. The strange move of going to a notary’s office to record a private conversation with a fellow member is interpreted in the party as an attempt to shield itself from the fight that Ferraz had decided to place on the general secretary of Madrid to promote another candidacy. But his resignation due to the mess of the leaks of documents from Ayuso’s boyfriend has left the way clear for Óscar López.
The man who was until September chief of staff of the President of the Government and today Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function made official this Thursday his candidacy to lead the Madrid federation as a prior step to facing Ayuso in the Community elections. A strategic commitment by Moncloa to give political and ideological combat to what they consider to be the main reference for the right in the entire country, far above Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Something similar happens with Luis Tudanca. After three frustrated attempts to lead the overturn in the Board, the relationship of the general secretary of Castilla y León with the federal leadership of his party has exploded. Tudanca has always been considered one of the territorial leaders closest to the so-called ‘sanchismo’, but the attempted replacement and the congressional process that his federation must now face has caused an open confrontation. Now he knows first-hand that Ferraz’s commitment is not to endorse him but to promote options that the federal leadership considers “more solid.”
The situation is different with Juan Espadas. Or it was different until the Seville congress last weekend that he presided over. At the top of the party they have openly admitted for a long time that the socialist general secretary of Andalusia is not a minimally competitive option compared to Juanma Moreno, and that his permanence only had to do with two things: with the recognition of his loyalty and his predisposition. to fulfill the task of unseating Susana Díaz, and with the lack of a plausible alternative. But last Saturday everything came to a head.
Numerous delegates and cadres from different Andalusian provinces definitively put the finger down on Espadas and thus took it upon themselves to convey it both to the media in private and to the party’s own federal leadership. Some, as in the case of Málaga, Jaén or Cádiz, have even done it in public. Now Ferraz is trying to find a way out of this new scenario with an eye to ensuring that Susana Díaz does not manage to fish in troubled waters and recover positions of power behind the scenes and that the party does not split in two again.
Along with Catalonia, where Illa aspires to become the baron of barons at the head of the PSC, Ferraz is aware that Andalusia and Valencia are the key fiefdoms that decide a general election.
Sánchez’s objective is none other, his team explains, than to rearm the PSOE politically for the new cycle to come. And, incidentally, fight some of the critical points that still remain active in the party. With Page armored in Castilla-La Mancha thanks to his absolute majority, the next big battle will be in Aragón, where Ferraz will promote Pilar Alegría to try to definitively put an end to Javier Lambán’s leadership.
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