Arrimadas looks in the mirror of the German liberals to save Citizens among the internal noise

Last week Arrimadas traveled to Berlin, where he had an intense work schedule. He met with the leader of the Free Democratic Party (FPD) and Minister of Finance, Christian Linder, from whom he received his support: “Spain needs a liberal alternative to progress,” declared the German. Linder explained the economic measures that Germany is implementing to combat the effects of the war in Ukraine and the pension reform, and encouraged her Spanish colleague not to despair, recalling that “the FPD, in Germany, also went through difficult times, but he came back and entered the Government”. Today’s Minister of Finance predicted that “that same comeback will be seen in Spain with Ciudadanos”.

A message that Arrimadas herself never tires of repeating in all her interviews and appearances. If they achieved it, so can their training in Spain, against all the forecasts of the polls.

During that day, Arrimadas also met with the person in charge of the Spanish office in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and liberal deputies in the Bundestag, as well as with the president of the foundation of the German liberals, Karl-Heinz Paqué.

But the photo she is most proud of is the one she got days before with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on his recent visit to Brussels, a photo that her predecessor, Albert Rivera, never got, despite pursuing her for a long time without rest. In her intervention before the prime ministers and European liberal leaders, the president of Ciudadanos highlighted the “historical responsibility of the liberal democrat family in the European institutions” and “the battle that is taking place with extremism”. Arrimadas’s satisfaction with that snapshot was reflected in a tweet that she posted immediately after it. As she proclaimed, the group to which both Ciudadanos and Macron’s party, Renew Europe, belong is the “containment dam against populism.”

Despite all this effort by Arrimadas to appear strong and encourage his own, both the squalid militancy and the few leaders with some prominence that Citizens have left know that the party is at a critical moment.

The last loss has been that of the MEP Luis Garicano, one of the most well-known and valued faces. It was quite a setback for Arrimadas, despite the fact that the leader has fired him with the best words and has expressed her wish that he be lucky in his new role. The economist, whom Albert Rivera signed in 2015, has resigned from his seat in the European Parliament, where he was head of the Citizens’ delegation, and leaves Brussels two years before the end of his term to take up a teaching position at the University from Columbia, New York.

After congratulating him on this “great professional achievement, further evidence that the Spanish liberal project is made up of talented people and a valuable, recognized and exemplary career outside of politics”, the Ciudadanos management added in a statement that they will continue to count with “the support and collaboration” of Garicano, although already “as a member of civil society and affiliated with this party where he will always have his home.”

His departure leaves Ciudadanos even more lacking in faces of a certain weight. Long before he resigned – although for different reasons, faced with Rivera – the two teammates who formed the first economic team of the match, Toni Roldán and Francisco de la Torre. Besides, the opa launched by Pablo Casado’s PP has done much more damage than they recognize with the transfer of cadres to the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo today.

A little over a month ago, the severe electoral defeat suffered in Andalusia also took away Juan Marín, who held the only remaining vice-presidency in an autonomous government, after losing his presence in Murcia, Madrid and, later, Castilla y Lion. In the Courts of this last community Francisco Igea still endures, who managed to be re-elected attorney. He is the only one they keep.

All these successive electoral debacles have left the formation without muscle and practically without a bench less than a year before the double appointment of the municipal and regional elections in May 2023. And with the general elections also scheduled for a few months later. The most palpable example is what is happening in Andalusia, where the party is disintegrating after the resignation of Marín as regional coordinator. Since then, no person in his environment – ​​neither critics nor related nor provincial coordinators – has shown the slightest interest in occupying the position that he has left vacant. The formation that proclaims itself “liberal” has been left unmanaged in the most populous community in the country, where they came to bring together more affiliates -5,697- and where they achieved the best electoral result.

Villacís, the relief?

The general secretary of Ciudadanos, Marina Bravo, and the secretary of Organization, Borja González, have taken charge of the Andalusian structure while the few municipal groups of the party that are left standing face the same identity crisis and lack of organic skeleton that has ended up destroying the party that has co-governed this region for the last four years. In Sanlúcar de Barrameda, birthplace of Marín, the party has entered a self-destructive spiral that has led it to break the government pact it had with the PSOE for three years.

At the moment, the highest institutional position they hold is the Deputy Mayor’s Office of Madrid, held by Begoña Villacís. And it has been precisely to her that Arrimadas has entrusted the coordination of the announced “refoundation” of Ciudadanos together with the Malaga deputy Guillermo Díaz, one of the people most faithful to the national leader and to whom he has entrusted him to preside over the foundation of the Spanish Liberals.

In a recent interview with elDiario.es, the deputy mayor explained that the project they are designing seeks to “re-excite” and boost the party: “It’s not about putting sheet metal and paint, it has nothing to do with the brand or with the name or with the color or with the logo or with anything like that”. “Whoever thinks it is a logo change is radically wrong. This is about making an apology for centrist liberal radicalism”, about “being braver than we have been until now and saying things that only a party like Ciudadanos can allow itself to say clearly”. Some comments about which she did not want to give more details, alleging that the team that works on the refoundation has a “confidentiality commitment”.

Villacís, in addition, advanced his willingness to present himself as a candidate for Mayor of Madrid, where he has just celebrated three years of coalition government with the PP of José Luis Martínez-Almeida. “Hard and difficult” and not exempt from “tensions”, as she has confessed. “I have thought that the best way to defend the liberal project is to defend the city of Madrid, defend our work in the Government of the city of Madrid. That is my place, ”she assured, reaffirming that it has not crossed her mind to opt for the leadership of Ciudadanos.

But the possibility that Arrimadas takes a step back is not ruled out by anyone. In fact, the leader of Ciudadanos is dropping some insinuations in that sense these days. Last Tuesday he acknowledged in an interview on TVE that he has been “tempted” to leave everything and return to his profession: “Leave it and go to normal work is a temptation that often crosses one’s mind, and more in the situation in which I have been personally, with two children in 21 months, being the president of the party”. But she immediately stated that she felt “strong” and “supported” by her colleagues, so her bet is to continue trying to make Ciudadanos a “decisive party”.

Last week, however, when asked in another interview on Antena 3 if she would be willing to leave the match in the hands of Villacís, she pointed out that it will be the militants who, within the framework of the refoundation process, say “who has to be the team director”, highlighting not only the figure of the deputy mayor, but also that of her spokesman in Congress, Edmundo Bal, as “assets for the party”.

The first challenge that Arrimadas faces is to find candidates for that double municipal and regional electoral appointment in the spring of 2023. However, the leader does not see this task as difficult and faces it as an “opportunity” to show “that there is a network that supports liberalism in Spain, which can be endured in some very important town halls and places in Spain”. Moreover, she is convinced that this double date will be the beginning of a “better” electoral cycle for Ciudadanos. For this reason, she has said, “the party is going to rely on mayors and municipal teams that are doing very well.”

Last weekend, the self-styled Refoundation Team shared a “day of participation, exchange of ideas and work” with “dozens of municipal officials from all over Spain”. “These sessions – they explain in the party – are part of the process that we have undertaken to listen to all the affiliates, positions, sympathizers and, ultimately, the people who believe that this political space is not only essential but also has a lot to say about the future of Spain”. And the previous week, deputy María Muñoz and MEP Adrián Vázquez did the same with a group of “technicians and professionals” to listen to their contributions.

“My personal commitment and that of my team lasts until that refoundation is made,” the liberal leader said before the Executive of her party a few days after the electoral debacle in Andalusia. The clock ticks.