Friday, March 29

Arrimadas plays his power this Monday in a double conclave that will define the future Ciudadanos


Madrid

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A nebulous panorama surrounds the future of Ciudadanos (Cs) and its leader, Inés Arrimadas. The persistent crisis that the party is going through, chronic since 10-N 2019, is not only far from dissipating, but also threatens to truncate forever to the formation that was born in 2006 to combat nationalism and question bipartisanship. The disappearance in Andalusia is only the latest symptom of a disease that eats away at the most recent attempt at liberalism in Spain.

The number 253 of the Madrid street of Alcalá, the national headquarters of Cs, the last vestige of its boom period, hosts two key appointments for the future of the party this Monday. First, the Executive Committee will meet, the expanded management, and then the General Council, the highest body between assemblies.

The immediate steps of Cs will depend on this double conclave, a week after Arrimadas announced the start of a refoundation in which the brand, policies, priorities and leadership of the formation will be put on trial. It is yet to be defined with what mechanismbecause the executive prefers to look for formulas that do not imply holding a General Assembly now.

That refoundation, which hours before the intervention of Arrimadas in Onda Cero was denied by his deputy secretaries general, Edmundo Bal and Daniel Pérez Calvo, has calmed the waters in certain sectors of Cs, but others are still on the warpath against “a triad” that does not has known, criticize members of the management in conversation with ABC, to take relevant decisions to give oxygen to Cs at a moment of maximum weakness.

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“The situation is untenable», emphasizes a member of the Executive Committee to this newspaper. According to this source, there is an internal clamor for Arrimadas to present his resignation and call an extraordinary General Assembly for the members to elect a new executive. For refoundation, he maintains, “there is no material time.”

This, however, is disputed by other sources consulted by this newspaper, who do consider a refoundation “viable”, “as has been done in other European parties”, but who also stress that the process must be sincere and open, and not a smokescreen to buy time.

From the Arrimadas environment they guarantee that this will not be the case and that what the leader will propose today is not a mere “national convention”, like the one held last summer, but a transformative process which will have a defined calendar. People of the maximum trust of Arrimadas transmit to ABC that she is “concerned” – an adjective that critical leaders elevate to “sunken” – and that she is not going to “entrench” herself in office if she finds that a majority of her colleagues do not want continue. Even so, they assure that she is “more plugged in than ever” and that he sees himself with the strength to fight for the liberal space. Proof of this is the summit of European liberals that he attended in Brussels last week, in which he met, among others, with the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, and with the French President, Emmanuel Macron.

Triad under suspicion

For the first time since she reshuffled her Standing Committee, the party’s hard core, the criticism is not directed at her alone. There is also some resentment with Edmundo Bal and with Daniel Pérez Calvo, who replaced the ousted Carlos Cuadrado and José María Espejo-Saavedra after the failed motion of censure in the Region of Murcia, and to whom some leaders make co-participants of the erratic strategy of Arrimadas, unable until now to enhance the flight. Thirty fewer seats in Catalonia, disappearance in the Community of Madrid and Andalusia, crash in Castilla y León, loss of the four autonomous governments that Cs had…

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Even so, in the party there is no clear alternative. The only profile that overshadows her is that of Begoña Villacís, deputy mayor of Madrid, but in the party they believe that she would be “crazy” do without his current great place to take a risk with a bet that does not guarantee success either. If when Albert Rivera resigned in 2019 no one doubted that his successor was Arrimadas – only Ignacio Aguado, who threatened to present himself to congress, and who this week has asked for his resignation – now no one, not even in private, dares to point out a future leader. Not even those who claim his head.

In his environment they also add the enormous void that his departure would leave in the parliamentary group and defend that, despite everything, he continues to be its best asset. But the party is these days a cricket cages, where there are as many opinions as militants. Uncertainty has settled especially in the Liberal Executive Committee, which is attended today by some members wanting blood to flow and others with a conciliatory spirit and a spirit of listening.

At the moment, yes, the speculations and opinions are exchanged above all in private, while waiting for the two organic meetings that will mark the future immediately from Arrimadas and Cs. The only thing shared by those who still resist in the liberal party is their will to avoid a definitive shipwreck that will lead to inevitable extinction. “If Inés leaves, she must do so with honors,” some say. “She still has one last bullet left,” others concede. Will she convince?

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