Arrimadas sows doubts about his continuity at the head of Ciudadanos after his "refoundation"

It is not the first time that Arrimadas has slipped that idea and, although she always goes on to clarify that she “feels strong enough to continue fighting for Spain”, the impression she leaves is that she is preparing her eventual withdrawal from politics even before she hold general elections. All this while waiting to see if her party really comes back in the double appointment with the municipal and regional polls, which will take place months before, in May 2023.

“Inés is not going to leave,” say management sources, who explain that in that interview, as well as in others she has offered, the leader is not suggesting her departure but something “obvious”, that “it will be the militants who will decide if we stay, not only Inés but all of us, at the head of the new project or prefer that other people do it”, point out the sources consulted by the Executive.

Arrimadas herself does not stop remembering that after the last blow that the party suffered in Andalusia -which meant the resignation of Juan Marín from all his positions-, the members of the Executive, with her at the head, held a meeting to analyze the new scenario and placed their positions “at the disposal of the highest body of the party”, which is the General Council. “Most of the comrades asked us to continue,” the Ciudadanos leader now recalls. “The easy thing would have been the opposite,” Arrimadas said then, minimizing those voices that demanded he leave and call an Extraordinary General Assembly, as did the former vice president of the Community of Madrid, Ignacio Aguado, or the critical current Renovadores Cs led by the former deputy. of the Catalan Parliament Antonio Espinosa.

“The militancy will vote and what they decide will be binding”

That same day, Arrimadas announced that he was going to start this “refounding” process, which would last six months: “We cannot proclaim that we are a reformist party on the outside but not be willing to reform everything on the inside. We made important changes two years ago, but we are still willing to change everything, and I was the first”, he said again this weekend. The mechanism to make all these changes will be decided by the party at the turn of the summer and must be approved by the General Council or by the expanded Executive. The idea is that in January the work is finished. But what they are clear about is that this entire process will be with the participation of all the militancy and “the result of the votes will be binding,” they tell this newsroom.

Given that the doubts are still in the air, there are many who now look to Begoña Villacís to lead the new stage if the militancy rejects the continuity of Arrimadas. In a recent interview with elDiario.es, the deputy mayor of Madrid assured that her wish is to continue in Madrid’s municipal politics and run for the spring 2023 elections, an appointment on which her future will also depend.

Another of the names that are planned in the environment for a hypothetical succession is that of Edmundo Bal, but the deputy spokesman for the parliamentary group has already been scalded after his failure in the autonomous elections that Isabel Díaz Ayuso called by surprise in Madrid in May of last year. Bal reluctantly replaced Ignacio Aguado and lost the 26 seats that Ciudadanos had in the regional Assembly.

At the moment, the so-called ‘Refoundation Team’ piloted by Arrimadas by Villacís herself and the deputy for Málaga, Guillermo Díaz, is still immersed in the work of the new project listening to all kinds of ideas and opinions and meeting with public officials and representatives of “civil society”. A decalogue of ideas has emerged from these meetings that have been captured in a document with the basic principles and “values” with which they hope to “re-excite” their voters and the Spaniards so that they trust them. These principles have been divided into 10 sections: Freedom; Equality; TRUE; Middle Classes; Spain; Increase; Environment; Seriousness, and Spain and Europe in the World.

According to Arrimadas, Ciudadanos, with this decalogue, is going to offer “a much more interesting and sexier option in electoral terms.” “We have to go back to being that party that unapologetically proclaims brave and necessary ideas that many people think but no party dares to say,” he pointed out in the same interview with Europa Press, also recalling that his party is the one that “is most self-critical has done in Spain”. “We have spent two years analyzing the causes of the decline, but it is time to look to the future,” he said, emphasizing that they have the “moral obligation” to defend the space of the political center.

The possible merger with the PP will not be submitted to consultation because “there will not be”

One of the things that the party leadership excludes is the possibility that the militancy pronounces on a hypothetical merger or convergence with the PP: “No merger with the PP is going to be proposed, the autonomy of the party will be guaranteed after the process. ”, sources from the Executive sentence to this wording. “This is about a refoundation, not a foundry, neither a merger nor integration into another party,” the aforementioned sources make clear.

However, PP and Ciudadanos have just reached an agreement to achieve compliance with the court ruling that requires a minimum of 25% of subjects to be taught in Spanish in Catalan schools. As they have announced, they will jointly present an appeal of unconstitutionality against the decree law with which the Generalitat, for the moment, has managed to get rid of the order of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), declared firm since the beginning of this year.

Although there is a good understanding with those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Arrimadas also affects the differences in projects. “Spain cannot afford to have to choose between reds and blues again”, “there are still many who want a liberal, reformist and modern option”, emphasizes the party leader, who recently traveled to Berlin to meet with her German counterparts, who are looked at since they sank at the polls but then came back and now even govern the country within a coalition. Both formations are in the European Parliament in the Renew Europe group, to which Emmanuel Macron’s party also belongs, with whom Arrimadas met in Brussels and managed to take some photos that she later displayed, very proud, on her Twitter profile .

All this occurs while the party suffers a new trickle of abandonment and loss of leaders who once held prominent positions. A few days ago, the departure of the head of the Citizens’ delegation in the European Parliament, Luis Garicano, was announced to teach at the prestigious Columbia University (New York). The party and Arrimadas herself wished him the best, highlighting the role that the economist had played during these years within the liberal group.

Others, however, have dropped out amid criticism of “mismanagement.” This is the case of the former member of the Guarantees Committee Fernando Sánchez-Contador, who alleges differences with the management. Or the deputy Carmen de Rivera, one of the first leaders of Ciudadanos who won a seat in the Parliament of Catalonia. And in Andalusia they still have not decided on a substitute for Juan Marín, who resigned from all his positions after the debacle harvested on 19J.

Added to all this is another of the party’s dramas: the recent dismissals of workers that they have had to undertake, although they assure that the national headquarters in Madrid’s Calle de Alcalá is not in danger as they have paid the rent for the next few years and have no debts with the banks.