Everything is exceptional in the regional elections of Madrid.
There was never an electoral advance in the region.
The parties never competed knowing that they will be back in the campaign in just two years (2023).
And no formation was thinking of going to the polls in the middle of a pandemic.
Its strategists are trying to adapt to the political earthquake in Madrid, which will examine all national leaders, and they try to prevent the campaign from being summed up in three words: Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
PSOE.
Under the control of La Moncloa.
Moncloa has taken control of Ángel Gabilondo's candidacy.
Pedro Sánchez has ordered Iván Redondo, Félix Bolaños and Francisco Salazar to take charge of the strategy and architecture of the campaign.
The president has also directly selected the components of the list, which has been rejuvenated and reinforced with senior government officials.
The PSOE of Madrid, simply, has been carried away.
In a campaign marked by the polarization caused by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Pablo Iglesias, Redondo and his strategy team have dedicated the last 10 days to solving the first emergency they encountered: that Gabilondo should not be relegated to no man's land.
The moderate and serene social democratic project, with which it is intended to attract the disgruntled vote of the center, fits naturally with the headliner.
The pandemic has conditioned that the start of the pre-campaign is purely audiovisual.
"A lot of television and a lot of communication in networks," sums up a member of the strategy team.
A set has even been set up on the ground floor of the party headquarters.
If the pandemic allows it, it is contemplated to carry out events in parks with restricted capacity.
Sánchez, who presented the candidacy of Gabilondo, will turn to the campaign, like his ministers.
The president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, on March 23, Victor Sainz
PP.
All against Ayuso, and Ayuso against Sánchez
.
The PP campaign will revolve around Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the work done in the party by the regional secretary general, Ana Camins, who has spent months renewing teams and activating the training headquarters.
"The adversary is the Sanchismo, which has ruled for a year and a half against Madrid," says a popular source familiar with the PP campaign, which foresees that the rest of the candidates will put their candidate on the target.
“The moment is decisive: there is a campaign of harassment and demolition of the left to seize power.
Not two years of government are at stake, but rather the way of life of the Madrilenians, "he adds, filling in content the motto chosen by the candidate:" Communism or freedom. "
That approach, believes the PP, should expand the candidate's electoral base, appealing to the management made during the pandemic, and especially to the decision to keep restaurants and bars open.
"He connects with a voter who goes beyond the left-right, for his defense of combining the economy with health," say party sources.
The candidate will rely on the national leader, Pablo Casado, whose future depends on retaining Madrid, and on the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
Díaz Ayuso has decided to participate in a single debate, limiting the confrontation with his rivals as much as possible and the possibility of repeating the mistakes of the 2019 campaign, when he lived from controversy to controversy for his statements.
Edmundo Bal, Inés Arrimadas and Begoña Villacís, this Saturday.
Zipi / EFE
CS.
Protagonism of Arrimadas and Villacís.
After the traumatic departure of Ignacio Aguado, the new candidate, Edmundo Bal, will be closely supported by the party's leader, Inés Arrimadas, and by the deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís.
This trident, which brings together the main political capital of the party at the moment, will take center stage.
The participation of Villacís will serve to try to dismantle the PP mantra that Ciudadanos is not a reliable partner, and that for that reason the Government of Madrid was broken.
"The problem has not been Cs, it has been Ayuso", will defend the formation that will give as an example that Villacís governs with loyalty with the PP in the City Council.
The management of Cs knows that survival is at stake in one figure: 5% of the votes, which once passed would allow them to be decisive in the future Government of the Community of Madrid.
The message of the formation led by Arrimadas will be that his ballot is the only safe option to "stop the extremes", because otherwise Díaz Ayuso will govern with Vox, or Ángel Gabilondo with Podemos, according to his thesis.
Cs could agree with both candidates - it does not reveal which one it prefers - but always leaving Vox and Podemos out of the equation.
The other axis of his proposal will be to vindicate his management in the Madrid Government with the PP.
The Cs campaign, led by the general secretary, Marina Bravo, and the former regional deputy César Zafra as coordinator, wants to flee from the soulless images of the Catalans, in which they bet on holding almost all the rallies telematically from a rooftop.
Street acts will return, small and in central places.
The candidate of Más Madrid, Mónica García, requests the vote by mail on March 26. MÁS MADRID / Europa Press
More Madrid.
Feminist regionalism
.
The 20 deputies of the fourth party of the Community worked since September with a hypothesis in mind: "Ayuso can advance the elections at any time."
They did not fail.
More Madrid has managed to capitalize on a Madrid regionalism with a frontal opposition to the president.
The party's axis swerved with the pandemic.
The current head of the campaign, Pablo Gómez Perpinyà - who was the party's spokesman until May - decided to step aside.
Since then, Mónica García, anesthetist at Hospital 12 de Octubre, has been Ayuso's scourge.
The party confirmed its brilliant rise with the candidacy for the Presidency of the Community a week ago.
García refused to go in coalition with Pablo Iglesias: "We women are tired of doing dirty work so that in historical moments they ask us to step aside."
The financing is not yet closed, but this Thursday they launched a microcredit campaign.
"We have set ourselves the goal of sending one of our ballots to all Madrid mailboxes," says Perpinyà, who like all his rivals knows the importance of voting by mail in an appointment marked by the pandemic.
Without rallies or mass events, one of the surprises that the formation handles is the rental of a terrace in the middle of Gran Vía. Más Madrid will hold a daily event here during the two weeks prior to the elections.
They will be broadcast on all social media channels, where they have a team of ten people.
Manuela Carmena will surely sit there.
Rocío Monasterio attends the press in a file image.
VOX.
In a national key.
The Madrid elections are for Vox the first round of the generals.
As a sign of the national dimension it gives them, Santiago Abascal has become Rocío Monasterio's campaign manager.
The candidacy of Pablo Iglesias for Podemos has been an unexpected gift for Vox, which benefits from polarization.
The ultra party's short electoral history shows that it is much better at the general elections than the regional ones.
In the Madrid elections of 2019, it obtained 8.8% of the votes, five points less than in the general elections of April 28 (13.8%) and almost ten less than in those of November 10 of the same year (18 ,5%).
The problem for Vox is how to differentiate itself from Díaz Ayuso, whose government it has been supporting.
The schizophrenia that involves competing with the PP for the same electorate and, at the same time, offering to complete its majority, Vox will try to solve by presenting itself as the guarantee that Ayuso will not deviate a millimeter from his right line without complexes to fall into the temptation to agree with what remains of Citizens.
Vox has chained a series of electoral successes, the last one in Catalonia, perfectly unproductive.
Even where his votes were essential (Madrid, Andalusia or Murcia), he remained outside the Government.
This time it is different.
If Ayuso wants his support, he will have to give him entry into his government, sources from his party acknowledge.
Pablo Iglesias, on March 24 in Congress.
Chema Moya / EFE
We can.
Iglesias as a mobilizer.
The nomination of Pablo Iglesias for the presidency of the Community of Madrid has accelerated the plans for the succession in Podemos, forced a government crisis and shaken the political board in the Community like no other candidacy.
Iglesias will focus his criticism and hard message on Ayuso.
Polarization benefits you.
The leader of Podemos already warned this week that no "bad word" would be heard from him with the progressive candidates.
In the formation they indicate that it is time to mobilize the left, something already complicated in Madrid, for an electoral appointment that is held on a non-holiday Tuesday, which will make it even more difficult to go to the polls.
Isa Serra, head of the list in the last elections, will be responsible for the campaign.
In the midst of the COVID crisis, it will be developed with the utmost respect for health measures: limited influx and more
streaming
events
than direct contact.
The financing will come with contributions through microcredits from members and supporters of the party, to avoid the participation of banks.
Although the definitive list of Podemos will be known in the coming days, the incorporation as an independent of Alejandra Jacinto, activist and lawyer of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), reveals that the housing problem will be one of the central axes of the Bell.
With information from
Juan José Mateo
,
José Marcos
,
Elsa García de Blas
,
Manuel Viejo
,
Miguel González
and
Paula Chouza
.