Emptied Spain collides with the rules of the electoral game

The candidates of the Emptied Spain to the elections of Castilla y León, this Monday in Ampudia (Palencia). EMPTY SPAIN (Europa Press)

In the electoral pre-campaign of Castilla y León, the platform España Emptied starts with a disadvantage. The PSOE can use the

or take the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to its rallies. The PP fills pavilions in internal conventions and waves the opposition flag to the central Executive. Ciudadanos stands as a centrist force and proposes pacts in Cebreros (Ávila), land of the late former president Adolfo Suárez. United We Can wield its weight as a government partner. The extreme right of Vox takes advantage of the strength of Santiago Abascal to agitate the masses. Meanwhile, the platforms against depopulation elbow their way through using their great asset: implantation on the ground.

This rural

faces the giant Goliath with the sling of proximity to his electorate, armed with those words whose relevance Empty Spain is beginning to know: apparatus, gear, machinery or influence. They do not even have the push of public propaganda: article 33 of the Electoral Law establishes that only those parties with representation or that attend in at least six of the nine provinces will access sections of between five and 20 minutes of free television broadcast. of Castile and León. The four candidacies of Empty Spain (Burgos, Palencia, Salamanca and Valladolid) and their first cousin, the group of voters Soria ¡Ya!, fight back with a simple recipe: street, van and coffee.

The first joint act, very different from the mass baths sought by traditional leaders, was held the day before yesterday in Ampudia (Palencia, 600 inhabitants). Tomás Guitarte, deputy of Teruel Exists, went there as godfather, an emblem of the representation to which unknown men and women aspire until almost nothing, such as Ángel Ceña, candidate of the Soriana platform. This official of the Board asks to "kick" the territory to make up for the lack of front pages, and to accept any invitation from the media to gain some loudspeaker. "The focus is on us now," he warns. It is an opportunity that they will try to take advantage of to obtain a prosecutor in the Courts and feed the trend so that it continues to grow in the upcoming elections. "We will have to do it with originality and work, but the one who does not fight does not win",exposes Ceña.

These groups are well aware of the complexity of competing against the huge parties, those that have failed to tackle the imbalance that they intend to correct. The head of the list in Palencia, Nieves Trigueros, admits "excitement, desire and some fear" in the face of this challenge. This agricultural autonomous knows that they are not going to fill pavilions, open news, take photos with voters or kiss children, this more than anything because of the terrible lack of children in their territories. "We are not afraid of not having representation, but of not meeting expectations," Trigueros points out, happy for the warmth they have appreciated in cafeterias or in the queue to get vaccinated.

José Ramón González, head of the Burgos candidacy, agrees with the value of popular participation. This worker in the field of international cooperation applauds the collaboration of the groups and the work of Teruel Exists and speaks of the challenge as a "marathon" where, in addition to the result, one must look at the growth they can achieve between identical associations. The palentina advises the platforms that in the future defend unpopulated areas in other parts of Spain "not to be scared", because the passage of Castilla y León "is an outpost". In addition, he says he understands those who have criticized that these associations take the political step so early, pushed by the electoral advance caused by the PP, but points out that the objective deserves it: "That the heart of Empty Spain continues to beat."

The candidate for Valladolid, Cristina Blanco, who has received critical voices for her past in Ciudadanos, states that she and her colleagues know "the rules of the game" and that they are going to adapt based on kilometers and conversations in squares, although there is no hardly anyone, to defend their ideas.

All the entities of this label defend a common development model, a program to move towards rebalancing.

For this reason, Blanco maintains, the hypothetical presence in the institutions, after 13-F, is not as important as the process of "generating changes towards rebalancing, Castilla y León is the first party."

Faith of errors

In a previous version of this article, it was mistakenly stated that José Ramón González worked for the NGO International Cooperation.

González has worked in different organizations in the international cooperation sector.