Candidates for the presidency of the Community of Madrid in the May 4 elections.
From the left, Ángel Gabilondo (PSOE), Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP), Edmundo Bal (Cs), Mónica García (Más Madrid), Rocío Monasterio (Vox) and Pablo Iglesias (Podemos).
A regional president who challenges the president of the central government in a duel - "See you at the polls".
A president of the central government who accepts the order and lets it fall, in the middle of an institutional trip through Africa, that the data on coronavirus infections in that community are not to be trusted;
a vice president who leaves La Moncloa so that Puerta del Sol is not closed to him;
a candidate who claims to be "dull";
another who has thrown the survival of the party he represents on his back.
They are held in Madrid, but they are not a Madrid election.
According to the PP, on May 4, "Spain within Spain" will choose between two ballots: "communism or freedom."
According to Podemos, "the 4-M not only public services are at stake, but democracy."
It is the roughest campaign in remembrance and it has not even officially started.
These are the factors that explain the harshness and significance of the Battle of Madrid.
All focus
The elections were an unforeseen scenario just over a month ago, both in La Moncloa and in Genoa.
It was Isabel Díaz Ayuso who made the decision to advance them, taking advantage of the fact that the day of the announcement of the motion of censure of Cs in Murcia - which failed at the regional level and triumphed in the City Council - had already convened the Governing Council in the Community.
Almost all the Madrid elections have been held at the same time as other regional or municipal elections, which increased the number of actors and diversified the attention, but this time all the leading role is for Madrid.
In the specific study of the CIS (4,124 interviews between March 19 and 28), 64% declare that these elections interest them “a lot or a lot” and 75.2% say that “they will certainly go to vote”.
The most mobilized are, in this order, those who supported the PP in 2019 (90.3%);
Vox (89.2%) and Podemos (80.8%.)
The fact that it is a working Tuesday will also influence participation.
A veteran politician of the Madrid PP believes that this “will benefit the left because many wage earners will ask for paid leave - which can be up to four hours - to be able to vote, and the self-employed, where traditionally there are more right-wing voters, will they will have more complicated ”.
The agenda: ETA, Catalonia, Venezuela, Iran ...
In the CIS electoral study, 61.9% affirm that "when it comes to voting, the most important thing is Madrid's own issues", while 24.5% point out "general issues in Spain".
37% affirm that what most influences them are “the ideas proposed by the party”, followed by the electoral program (24.6%) and the candidate (18.1%).
The political scientist Pablo Simón explains that “the normal thing”, when some regional elections do not overlap with others, “is that local issues arise above all”.
However, in this pre-campaign "there is hardly any talk about the problems in Madrid and that nullifies accountability, which is key in democracy," he adds.
The PP, especially the Madrilenian, with a greater ideological charge, usually works like this.
"The Community of Madrid is the main bastion of the popular and has, therefore, more capacity to set the agenda at the national level: ETA, pacts with independentists, taxes ...", continues Simón.
"Traditionally, Madrid has been the opposition to the Government of Spain when the left governs, but also the opposition within the PP when the right governs, as happened with Esperanza Aguirre and Mariano Rajoy."
In his speech this Saturday, Díaz Ayuso spoke of ETA -disbanded since May 2018-;
from Iran, Venezuela and Cuba;
accused the Government of "improving the living conditions of terrorists" and "protecting the coup plotters" and made numerous winks to the Vox voter, for example, by criticizing "the prefabricated environmentalism that ends with private initiative and those who defend the bullfighting ”or“ false feminism ”.
In the act in which the candidate presented her pre-campaign video, Pablo Casado went back to De Juana Chaos.
The president of the PP, Pablo Casado and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, this Saturday, upon arriving at the Congress of New Generations of the PP held in Madrid.David Fernández / EFE
Derivatives for Sánchez, Casado, Iglesias, Abascal and Arrimadas
In the national leadership of the PP and in the regional governments that preside there are mixed feelings about the rise of Isabel Díaz Ayuso because "she already flies alone."
A regional president pointed out, shortly after the electoral advance: “In the end, in Madrid there are always problems of this type.
It also happened with Aguirre, because the Community gives a projection that no other site gives, due to the capital effect and because of its proximity to all national affairs.
Isabel owes everything to Pablo, but we have seen many times cases of politicians who forget this type of debt and this takes many turns ”.
One of Ayuso's most enthusiastic fans in the game is precisely Aguirre: “My admiration for her has grown.
It will make internal enemies, but I see it very focused on Madrid ”.
A former PP minister is surprised by Sánchez's attitude.
“It has totally entered Ayuso's rag.
His participation in the Madrid campaign has nothing to do with the Galician, Basque and not even Catalan campaign, where his presence was testimonial.
Here it is turning upside down and if it were Ayuso that would worry me because a president may lose against the leader of the opposition, but not against a regional leader.
Their bet is so strong that it gives the feeling that they handle information that others do not have, because if they do not manage to govern, Gabilondo will not have lost, but the Prime Minister, who will have exposed himself to the point of being burned.
If they have made that decision, it is because they really believe they can win ”, he says.
It is Sánchez's chief of staff, the all-powerful Iván Redondo, who directs the Madrid candidate's campaign: the umpteenth proof that these are not regional elections, but much more.
The socialist candidate for the Community of Madrid, Ángel Gabilondo, together with the PSOE Secretary of Equality and First Vice President of the Government, Carmen Calvo, during an act on feminism this Saturday in Madrid.
PSOE / EFE
Iglesias, says Andrés Medina, from Metroscopia, is running for the elections with three objectives: "the most epic, 'to defeat fascism" ―in allusion to a possible government of the PP with the extreme right of Vox―;
that of leading the so-called 'transformative left' and that of preventing Podemos from being left out of the regional Parliament ”, as the polls suggested before he decided to run.
"Of the three, only the last one is clear," says the expert.
If Más Madrid, the party created by the co-founder of Podemos Íñigo Errejón, remains ahead, it would be a failure for Iglesias and even within the formation there are those who doubt that if this is the case, the still leader of Podemos will stay to watch the game from the bench of the Madrid Assembly.
In the case of Ciudadanos, the leaders consulted believe that staying outside Madrid - the CIS places them below the necessary 5% of votes - could be the last nail in the party's coffin.
The quarrel
In recent days, Iglesias was accused by members of the neo-Nazi group Bastión Frontal and the headquarters of his party in Cartagena (Murcia) attacked with explosive material.
Last Wednesday, the police charged against protesters who tried to boycott a Vox event in Vallecas after Abascal confronted them and a shower of cans, bottles and cobblestones was unleashed.
The act ended with two detainees and 35 wounded, 21 of them agents.
Today a group of far-right violent men have come to try to intimidate us in a public act with a neighborhood association from Coslada.
We will not accept any kind of threat.
Thank you, neighbors from Coslada.
pic.twitter.com/Y30D0AGyh7
- Isabel Serra (@isaserras) March 30, 2021
The tension is also growing due to the pandemic, which has become a political weapon.
Ayuso suggests that the vaccines begin to arrive "due to the electoral campaign" - the acquisition is made through the European Union - and Sánchez questions the epidemiological data of the Community.
The region registers a daily number of infections (notified in the last 24 hours) and then adds positives to that figure throughout the days.
For example, on March 30, it notified 1,749 poisitvos that day, and on March 9, in that same box, 2,158.
Those who consider the management of the pandemic by the Madrid president as "bad or very bad" (43.4%) prevail over those who believe that it has been "good or very good" (36.6%), according to the CIS.
Curiously, those who voted for Vox in 2019 give it a better grade than those of the PP.
The 14-day cumulative incidence in Madrid on Friday amounted to 324 cases per 100,000 inhabitants;
the Spanish average is 182. The Community has 14% of its hospital beds occupied by covid patients, double the Spanish average.
In the case of ICUs it rises to 39%, while in Spain it is 20%.
“I don't remember a campaign as tough as this one.
Not even after the
tamayazo
”, affirms a former leader of the Madrid PP.
Political scientist Pablo Simón believes that “the polarization, the pandemic and the crisis, together with the national focus of Madrid, favor the out of tune.
The actors have an interest in electrifying the campaign ”.
As for the riots, he points out: "If it works for Vox, it will repeat it because that gives it attention and it needs it at all costs now that the polls are declining."
Both agree that the atmosphere was much more relaxed in the Galician, Basque and Catalan election campaigns for one reason: they were less competitive than these, especially the first two, because an electoral turn was more complicated.
Hundreds of people surrounded the pre-election act of Vox in the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas, this Wednesday.
Bald Elm
Between March 1 and April 8, 387 demonstrations and rallies were reported to the Government Delegation in Madrid.
'Photo finish': how the candidates arrive
The electoral poster has little to do with that of 2019. Not even Ayuso is the same.
A politician from the Madrid PP recalls that it began "very insecure after having lost the elections and now, very grown, it has launched for the vote of Vox and Citizens".
“The entry of Iglesias, who makes a risky, brave decision to prevent Podemos from being left out of the Assembly,” he adds, “has caused the campaign to become polarized.
The center has flown.
Ciudadanos has little to do and Ángel Gabilondo, who under normal circumstances is one of the best in politics, is overshadowed in this campaign.
He is much better president than candidate ”.
Ciudadanos has withdrawn Ignacio Aguado to place Edmundo Bal, but he is, with Mónica García, the least known candidate, and the CIS only has bad news for him at the moment: 34.5% of the electorate does not know him and only 13.2% of those who supported Ciudadanos in the general elections of November 2019 want him to be the president of the Community of Madrid.
The voters of the Arrimadas party prefer (61.4%) to Ayuso, like those of Vox (75.4%).
Covenant strategy
Gabilondo assures that he will not agree with Pablo Iglesias - despite the fact that Podemos governs in coalition with his party in La Moncloa-.
Ciudadanos affirms that it will agree with the PP ― despite its stormy relationship in Madrid and after the motion of censure with the PSOE in Murcia―.
The national leadership of the PP maintains that Vox should not enter the Government - despite the fact that Casado himself offered ministries to the formation of Abascal before a general election.
The messages are more about strategy than reality.
For Simón, “the PSOE is looking for Citizens and Arrimadas voters to try to stop the six out of 10 who are going to the PP.
But the voter already knows that in this country there are no transversal pacts: the left adds with the left and the right, with the right ”.
There is league
The fall of Vox and the rise of Podemos with the entry into play of Pablo Iglesias has given hope to the left wing.
The CIS reflects the possibility that the PP will die of success, by taking votes from Vox and Cs without being enough for the absolute majority of Ayuso or to add, together, one more seat than their rivals.
The uncertainty has triggered nervousness.
Few times has the Electoral Board had as much work as now, which carries more than 25 resolutions for cross-party complaints.
The organization has reprimanded Ayuso on three occasions for mixing her status as president and candidate to carry out electoral propaganda;
also to the PSOE for a banner promoting his candidacy in the Plaza de Callao and to include the photo of Gabilondo in the brochures to promote voting by mail before the campaign formally begins, and to Iglesias for using his official office as vice president to announce that presented to the elections.
More complex is the conflict over the candidacy of Toni Cantó, exporter of Cs in the Valencian Cortes, on the PP lists.
The Electoral Board rejected the PSOE's complaint, which claimed that it had not met the registration deadlines, but the Socialists have resorted to the contentious-administrative court because the politician renewed his DNI to include a Madrid address a few days before the lists were registered electoral.
36.5% decide who they vote for "between the last week of the campaign and election day," according to CIS.
The war drags on and can have consequences far beyond Madrid.
Ramón Gómez de la Serna used to say: "A stone at Puerta del Sol moves concentric waves throughout the entire lagoon of Spain."
