For Madrid socialism, Madrid is synonymous with defeats and a succession of failed bets since the infamous “Tamayazo”. With the exception, of course, of Ángel Gabilondo, who was the only one who touched the presidency of the Community many years after that transfuguism operation that prevented the change of political sign in the regional government in 2003. It was in 2019, when the former Minister of Education prevailed at the polls against a then unknown and inexperienced Isabel Díaz Ayuso, but the sum of the three right-wing parties that then participated in the elections – PP, Ciudadanos and Vox – removed him from the Puerta of the Sun.
Four years later, and after a campaign personally designed by the guru Iván Redondo, then Pedro Sánchez’s chief of staff, the PSOE also obtained its worst historical result with Gabilondo and even lost the leadership of the left by falling behind Más Madrid in number of votes. The socialists have a total of 29 years of opposition to the right-wing governments of the Community of Madrid led by Alberto Ruíz Gallardón, Esperanza Aguirre, Cristina Cifuentes, Ángel Garrido, Pedro Rollán and Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Juan Lobato was the last to try, with little success, to snatch the crown jewel of the PP in the 2023 elections. And it is already an open secret that the federal leadership is not satisfied with its work in opposition to the queen of Sol, although in Ferraz there was doubt in principle about whether to promote an alternative candidate for his leadership in the regional congress that will be held in the first quarter of 2025 or wait to fight the battle when choosing the electoral poster, today it is taken for granted that there will be primaries. Several names have already come to the fore. Some because they have been taking the temperature of the groups for months and talking to the totems of socialism. And others because, even though it is only a product of political-journalistic speculation, they don’t mind being in the pools.
Javier Ayala, the current mayor of Fuenlabrada who already measured himself and failed against Lobato in the last regional congress, has been one of the most popular names. And, although months ago, the option did not sound bad among some Ferraz leaders, today in the federal leadership they do not believe that he is the person who can take the regional government from the right. Not to mention the cost that losing an internal primary would have for one of the main PSOE mayors.
Lobato himself believes that if Ayala’s were the alternative to challenge him for leadership, his chances of remaining in the general secretary would increase. And even more so if the candidacy of the mayor of Fuenlabrada were sponsored by the federal leadership. “Anyone who presents themselves today as a victim of an organic operation orchestrated by the federal government has a large part of the campaign done. And that is something that Pedro Sánchez has, from his own experience, very internalized,” say sources from the Madrid federation in reference to the internal process in which the current President of the Government prevailed over the candidacy of Susana Díaz, which was promoted by a coalition. of interests of the socialist leadership. Nor is Fran Martín, current Government delegate in Madrid, a name that arouses too much enthusiasm among the leading cadres, despite the fact that there are those who attribute intentions in this regard to him. And the same thing happens with other supposed candidates that have circulated in the Madrid circles, such as that of councilor Enma López, who will have a permanent position in the new Executive that emerges from the Seville Congress – it is likely that as spokesperson –, but for now only that because, according to what is considered, he still lacks size and volume to lead something.
If there is a name that has been on the mind of the President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE for months, it is that of the current Minister for Digital Transformation and the Public Service, Óscar López, as confirmed by reliable sources. The person who was Sánchez’s chief of staff until the last remodeling of the Council of Ministers thus emerges among the possible candidates for the Community of Madrid in the regional elections of 2027, something about which the aforementioned did not want to comment with this newspaper.
Those in the circle closest to the President of the Government also affirm that, so far, nothing has been decided and that this melon will open when the Federal Congress that will be held in Seville on the last weekend of November passes. What they do attest to is that López’s name is among the options that Sánchez is considering, who has ensured the Madrid militancy of his minister, and also that the president wants a party man with a tough profile to confront Ayuso in 2027.
Outstanding student from Rubalcaba
López, along with Óscar Puente, is at this moment the most political and mordant minister of those in the Government and those who nominate him consider that he is the one who can best respond to the constant provocation of an Ayuso who has made the confrontation with the Government of Spain its only reason for being and also for being in politics. Those who know the Minister for Digital Transformation well believe that López could not refuse a proposal to play the Madrid president as an antagonist and that, surely, he will not find “a more noble cause to which to dedicate the remainder of his political life.” .
Having been Secretary of Organization of the PSOE with Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, from whom he learned almost everything, Óscar López is not very motivated by the internal affairs of the party, to which Lobato has dedicated much of his time since he was elected leader of Madrid’s socialism. , so it is not ruled out that there is an agreement between the two. In fact, in statements to this newspaper a little over two months ago, Lobato himself said he had no problem stepping aside when choosing the candidate for the Community of Madrid if the party presented him as an alternative to a minister of “incontestable” profile.
In the socialist universe there are those who believe that with López the battle against Ayuso would be very different from the one led by Lobato today and that there would be many more possibilities of recovering the ground that the left has lost on its own merits in Madrid. There are also those in the opposite direction who remember that the minister was already the headliner for the Junta de Castilla y León in 2011 against the popular Juan Vicente Herrera and that the setback was historic. In their defense, they add that he was then a victim of the so-called “Zapatero effect” after the management of the economic crisis of 2008. In any case, that may sound like a very distant story of which today very few remember a position for which A story had to be improvised about López’s emotional attachment to Castilla y León given his family relationship with Riaza.
Today, by the way, and after the crisis that confronted Ferraz with the current general secretary of the Castilian-Leonese federation, Luis Tudanca, based on the calendar of the primaries, the name of the mayor of Soria, Carlos Martínez, is the best positioned to occupy the same poster that López wore almost three decades ago. There is no better opponent to take the Board away from Mañueco, his strongest supporters say, than a socialist mayor who has accumulated four absolute majorities and has the approval of a large part of the federation.
If Óscar López is a veteran, hardened in a thousand confrontations with the PP, strategist of several electoral campaigns, and one of the protagonists of the recent history of the PSOE, Carlos Martínez is an indisputable reference of municipalism in the PSOE who sports an accredited record of services at the polls.
Regarding the rest of the territories, there will be time after the federal congress to outline the plans and the changes that may occur in the current territorial leaderships because there will be more. To be continued…
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