The sad demise of Spain's shrinking centre party, Ciudadanos
🔊Petty squabbles over who gets to be in charge of what's left lead the regional spokeswoman in Valencia to resign in tears at a press conference.
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Members of Ciudadanos, Spain’s shrivelling centre party, have until 6 p.m. today to choose a new party leadership. Ciudadanos claims around 10,000 members on its webpage but EFE reported yesterday that 7,642 people were eligible to vote. Last time they held a leadership election, in 2020, more than 20,000 people voted, which means the party has lost 65% of its grassroots members in two years.
In last June’s elections in Andalusia, Ciudadanos lost all its seats in the regional parliament. In last February’s elections in Castilla y León, it lost all but one. The risk is the same thing happens in 2023 in the other 12 regions holding ballots in May, in 8,000 town councils and at the national level.
To try to stop the party from going to zero at the very beginning of Spain’s big election year, members can choose between three different leadership proposals. It is not clear what role the current leader, Inés Arrimadas, will play. She is not at the top of any of the lists but is still the most visible national face of the party and could still end up as the party’s candidate for PM at the general election.
The option supported by both Arrimadas and the Deputy Mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, is called “Your party reborn” and is led by Adrián Vázquez and Patricia Guasp. Reports claim double the support for that list than for the second place option, “Ciudadanos renewed”, led by Edmundo Bal and Santiago Saura. In third place, there is a list called “The base of change”, led by Laura Alvez and Marco Morales.
While there has been some debate about how close the renewed version of the party should be to the conservatives further right or to the socialists further left, the story has been all about petty squabbles over who is going to be in charge of whatever is left. At less than 2% in the polls, it will be difficult for whoever wins, and regardless of if the party is reborn, renewed or changed, to stop the rot in Ciudadanos in the months before the elections.
From a high point of 57 seats in Congress at the April 2019 general election, and a chance at entering a majority coalition centre-left government with the socialists, Ciudadanos slipped to 10 seats by the time the second general election that year took place in November.
This morning, there were hardly even any stories about the leadership race that is taking place today on the front pages of Spain’s online newspapers, although news did break that the Ciudadanos spokeswoman in the regional parliament in Valencia, Ruth Merino, had resigned.
She did so actually sobbing at a press conference and said she was leaving because she felt “powerless” and disappointed with all the options. The party’s former leader in Andalusia, Juan Marín, told reporters he was feeling “great sadness” at what was happening and that the leadership race was more about “hanging on to their seats than really about principles and values”.
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Apart from the grief felt by those losing their place on the gravy train, I fail to see sadness in the demise of a party founded on one, and only one, premise: Hate for Catalunya, Catalans their language and culture. A very poor basis for a party. Even Albert "The Naked One" Rivera has, rat like, fled the sinking ship claiming he was too busy taking his pooch for walks. BTW, I once spent a night as a "guest" of Inés Arimmadas' father at police headquarters in Barcelona when he was in the same unit aiding and abetting the infamous Creix Brothers.