Several buses park, dozens of people get off them. Mayors and candidates taking photos as tourists, mayors and candidates mingle with the free walking tour. It is almost ten in the morning in the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia, which houses the PSOE municipal conference, where the Social Democrats will refine their electoral program just forty days before the elections. The conference measures the political thermometer, the one in the city is already above 20 degrees.
In the morning the disembarkation ends with those who speed up the deadlines, most of them arrived last night. they left late or with the deputy general secretary of the PSOE, Maria Jesús Montero, later a dinner, some a night walk before the work day. In the surroundings of the pools of the City of Arts, many groups come together, the delegations go almost hand in hand. Navarre, Cantabrian, Andalusian, Catalan, Balearic, Castilian, all the federations are uploading content to the official accounts. A selfies, another, several photos of the team at the reception photocall; many more in the next. A coffee, a lunch. Many kisses, another photo, how well you are, how good to see you. The conference is accessed by stadiums, like beating the levels of a game. After the photocall arrives the traditional shop of the merchandising socialist: cups, notebooks, card games. The motto of this convention is ‘Defend what you think’, which is stamped on the screens placed in the arcade of the Príncipe Felipe Science Museum. Half of the building houses a museum center with a large pendulum, the other half the meeting of the mayors and mayors.
On the outside, in the gaps between the tight program of presentations and work commissions, the complicity is seen. Óscar Puente, mayor of Valladolid, is photographed with Santander’s candidate, Daniel Fernández; Juan Espadas, former mayor of Seville, greets effusively with Sandra Gómez, deputy mayor and candidate for Valencia. The two cities will further strengthen their links with some proposals in the framework mandate. Both cities are a reference in a good part of the policies that have been approved this Saturday, stand out from Ferraz, as with the ordinances that sanction prostitution and the regulation of tourism.
The highlight of the day is not the paella that will be served for lunch. It is the intervention of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former president of the Government. His intervention is a metronome for the mayors, they applaud him with each item that he reveals. Memory, pride, social rights, coexistence. If when he talks about pardons the applause sounds more in one wing than in another, when he talks about unity and stability the clapping makes itself felt.
The former president praises the municipal, regional, and state work. He is a great master of ceremonies. He praises Abel Caballero, who stands up and receives a lot of applause – a good day in the city of light, with the permission of Vigo y Caballero, he jokes -; he praises Ximo Puig, with whom he confesses that he “has a weakness” because “he is a thorough democrat, a good person.” The Valencian president has taken him to see an exhibition on the congress of intellectuals of the Second Republic, held in Valencia in 1937, with photographs by Walter Reuter and Robert Capa, with the memory of María Zambrano, Miguel Hernández or Luis Cernuda. They spent two hours in the exhibition center, the Palacio de las Comunicaciones, on Friday night, because together “they always end up in an exhibition.”
Zapatero devotes a large part of his speech to praising the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and his coexistence policies in Spain in general and in Catalonia in particular. He displays his experience dealing with the right, he knows the discourse of chaos, which he censors and criticizes. Faced with this, he advocates a campaign with “serenity”, “optimism” and “tranquility”. “We can be convinced of what the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez is doing,” he tells them, and they applaud him loudly.
In politics, both reality and the promise of the future are important, so regardless of what has been done, what is yet to be done is promoted. The agreement to approve a housing law occupies a good part of the interventions, inside and outside the conferences. Montero, former President Zapatero, and the leaders in the corridors mention it. It was claimed by Ximo Puig, Jaume Collboni and Antonio Muñoz Martínez, responsible for three territories with serious housing problems: the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, the candidate for mayor of Barcelona and the mayor of Seville. It is necessary, they coincide. For Puig, host of the event, choosing Valencia implies turning around the reputational mortgage. “It is a recognition of what the Valencian Community means as a space for coexistence,” he told the media. Asked about autonomy as a battlefield, the fighting square, he points out: “The PP tries to place it in the past, like a trophy. What we are at stake is whether we go back to the past of corruption and the reduction of rights or if we continue advancing”.
The former president finishes and the candidates get to work, they get into the commissions that prepare the 83 proposals of the framework program. The thermometer rises, 31 degrees, it is already noon in the city of light, with my pardon from Vigo. After two o’clock, the canapés come out, the candidates regroup, and discuss the first half of the day. Now yes, of course, the paella dish.
Valencia has positioned itself as a battlefield between the PP and PSOE, with polls predicting a close result in both the regional elections and the mayoralty. But it is also as a stage, the city chosen for the great pre-campaign acts; both parties have organized their municipal conventions in the same place, the arcade of the museum in the City of Arts and Sciences. The two parties dispute the symbolism of the complex through the skeleton: the conservatives puff up having built it, the social democrats point out the cost overruns, it is their brand of corruption and megalomania, of delusional politics. Faced with delirium, they promote themselves as the party “that steps on the street”, of “useful politics” for the citizen. His defense: management.
Ferraz appeals to the management of the mayors as a campaign asset. Mayors are difficult to remove, their best banner is the policies they carry out. The act has tried to be a sign of affection for the mayors, spur them to arrive vigorously on May 28, which will have a state interpretation; a victory or defeat that is built from the bottom up. “You represent the best of our party. Because you are the ones who have the ability to articulate in every corner of this country that we love”, Montero told them, describing them as “the sap” of a project for the future. All in all, the PSOE’s display of muscle does not finish convincing on its first day. Some candidates are upset, the session runs a bit late, the programs require more time, they are focused on their campaign. The smiles soon give way to some long faces, tired grimaces. Those long faces collide with the congress held in the same city, which seemed like a true festival, where the party did not limit participation, the debate of ideas. Despite this, they endure the pull, they participate, they are where they are called. They occupy the chairs that they have to occupy.
