The challenge of a table leaves the results between Zuloaga and Herrán to lead the Cantabrian delegation in the Federal Congress of the PSOE in the air

The candidacy headed by the mayor of Castro Urdiales, Susana Herrán, has provisionally won in the internal vote held this Sunday among the militancy and, if the results are confirmed, she will lead the Cantabrian delegation in the Federal Congress of the PSOE that will be held in Seville at end of November to re-elect Pedro Sánchez. The list critical of the current leadership of the party in the autonomous community has achieved a narrow victory of 10 delegates compared to 9 against the candidacy of the current general secretary, Pablo Zuloaga, who does not accept these data as good due to the challenge of a table that would give a turn in the results, giving him the victory by just two votes difference.

Thus, the nearly 3,000 PSOE militants in Cantabria were called to the polls this Sunday in an organic process that seemed inconsequential, since they were simply choosing the 19 delegates who will attend the Federal Congress of Seville in which Pedro Sánchez will give a vote. mass bath as the only candidate, but that in the autonomous community has been presented as a first round of an internal conflict brewed by control of the party, promoted by a critical sector grouped around the national deputy Pedro Casares, who did not even attend in first person

Depending on the final results of this vote, in which around 75% of the militancy participated, different conclusions will be drawn in the face of a new head-on clash next spring, which will be when the primaries will be held in the that the General Secretariat of the PSOE of Cantabria will be put into play, which is why the socialist militancy has lived in recent weeks between tension and stupefaction due to the level of aggressiveness that has been unleashed in a call that is more symbolic than real, but which will short-term effects.

The militants have had to choose between two lists: the one headed by Pablo Zuloaga himself with his usual team and the one led by the mayor of Castro Urdiales, Susana Herrán, as a person brought in by Pedro Casares, who has assured his presence in Seville as a member. even from the outgoing Federal Executive. Without the possibility of negotiation or integration, some and others have interpreted this appointment with the polls as a first attempt at battle in which to measure their strength and count support, which has divided the party practically into two equal halves.

All of this has provoked an intense campaign even to collect endorsements, with individual calls to the militants, interviews, statements to the media and an externalization of the internal conflict towards public opinion that was criticized even by Ferraz, who had to intervene with a unpublished statement in which he denied “neither guardianship nor interference” in favor of one of the candidates that were presented to the organic process.

If the provisional distribution of votes is confirmed, the 19 Cantabrian delegates who will go to Seville to support Pedro Sánchez would be headed by Susana Herrán along with nine more people from her list: Julio Pinna, Ainoa Quiñones, Sergio Abascal, Esther Bolado, Gonzalo Fernández , Andrea Ventisca, Salomón Martín, Lydia Terán and Nicolás Toral. The rest of the delegation would be completed by Pablo Zuloaga himself and eight members of his team: Eugenia Gómez de Diego, José Luis Urraca, Ana Belén Álvarez, Javier Incera, Charo Losa, Sergio Balbontín, María Dolores Nates and José Salmón.

Challenge of a table

However, minutes after these results were reported, the party has issued a brief official statement in which it grants provisional victory to the candidacy of Pablo Zuloaga, who would have obtained 50.05% of the votes. According to this press release, this is the information in favor of the list of the current general secretary waiting for the resolution of the challenge presented by his team regarding the vote in the group of the municipality of Cartes, where supposedly “a “non-militant person, even becoming part of the voting table.”

“In this way, the provisional results detail that Pablo Zuloaga’s candidacy has received 50.05% support, with 970 votes, while Susana Herrán’s has obtained 49.94% support, with 968 votes,” points out the PSOE in its statement, anticipating an internal conflict that Ferraz will have to resolve in the coming days.