The deputy of the PSOE Odón Elorza intervenes in a plenary session of the Congress. Chema Moya (EFE)
Odón Elorza has given a knock to San Sebastian politics that resonates in the distance.
The socialist deputy for Gipuzkoa and former mayor of San Sebastián has decided to run as the PSE-EE candidate for mayor of this city.
11 years ago he lost his leadership and all this time he has dedicated himself to parliamentary tasks, although, he says, he has never lost the pulse of local news.
“San Sebastián above all else”, he usually comments to those close to him.
His desire to return to municipal politics has caused surprise and shock in the ranks of his party.
The Socialists had assumed that the current spokesperson in the City Council, Marisol Garmendia, was going to head the electoral poster in 2023. Elorza has disrupted all these official plans:
“I have encouraged myself with the intention of opening a debate between citizens and among the militancy.
I am not for the job of generating tension, ”he affirms in statements to EL PAÍS.
The idea of presenting himself to the primaries and disputing Garmendia's candidacy began to haunt him "a few weeks" ago.
He decided to take the plunge and make it official at the end of August.
In a letter that he has sent to those responsible for the three socialist groups in San Sebastián and to the militancy, Elorza states that San Sebastián “needs leadership and a clear idea of a city”.
"We must restore the illusion of the citizens of San Sebastian with a project that provides a new impetus to the City Council so that the city faces the pending challenges," he says in the letter that justifies his decision to aspire to be mayor again, a position he held between 1991 and 2011, until the then Bildu candidate, Juan Carlos Izagirre, managed to unseat him that year.
Now that he has been analyzing "in more detail" the municipal news, now 67 years old,
“I am concerned that San Sebastián is moving between complacency and indecision.
I observe with sadness," he assures this newspaper, "a notable lack of decision-making that is causing a lot of damage to the city.
There is a lack of leadership in the face of problems such as public housing, mobility, the climatic emergency, the regulation of the tourist wave, the planning of urban policies that curb speculation or the halt suffered by cultural initiatives after the failed management of the European Cultural Capital of 2016″.
If Elorza obtains more support than Garmendia in the primaries that will be resolved in mid-October, he will leave the act of deputy at that very moment and will dedicate himself fully for eight months to preparing the assault on the mayor's office.
And he assures that, in the event of being elected again as alderman, he will renounce the salary of this position and will live on the pension that corresponds to his contribution to the general Social Security regime.
“I'm not looking for anything;
I already got what I wanted.
I just want to enrich the debate in the city and invigorate my party, because we don't have too many debates either”, he assures.
He takes out the return ticket to San Sebastián and hints that this will be his last term in Madrid, where he arrived in 2011 and settled after being re-elected in the three successive electoral calls for the Lower House.
The critical spirit that he has displayed throughout this stage in the hemicycle has meant that he wears the label of rebellious and unruly deputy for skipping the discipline of his party on several occasions.
“I understand militancy as an exercise in constructive criticism.
You have to be creative.
In all the meetings of the parliamentary group I am in the habit of speaking, offering my point of view, even disagreeing.
It is the greatest contribution I make to internal democracy.
I am loyal [to the party] in this way,” he states.
For not complying with the instructions of the socialist group, he has had to pay four fines, the last of 700 euros when last November he refused to support the candidacy of Enrique Arnaldo to the Constitutional Court.
He had previously declared himself rebellious when he voted in favor of limiting the capacity for public office, in the debate on the succession of the Crown and for his
non
to the investiture of Mariano Rajoy.
At other times, he has grudgingly complied with the guidelines.
Elorza expressed himself like this during the controversy that his dissidence with the appointments to the Constitutional Court aroused: “Party discipline forces you to assume difficult situations, to have many swallows.
But there are times when you have to be yourself, when your conscience has to weigh you down.
If you are 30 years old and want to make a career, you still fold.
I have been there for many years, although I have never acted like this either.”
The socialist deputy has now disrupted the plans that the leadership had to face the electoral race in San Sebastián.
All eyes were on Marisol Garmendia until he chose to fight his former collaborator.
The leaders remain on the sidelines, avoid expressing their preferences in public and deny that Elorza has generated internal tensions.
In this chorus of restrained statements, only Garmendia's voice has gone out of tune: "I don't do
vintage politics
.
Everyone has their time and now it's my turn, "he said after learning of the former mayor's intentions.
She, 58 years old and a graduate in Journalism, wants to be “the first socialist woman from San Sebastian to be mayor of San Sebastián”.
Elorza assures that if she is chosen as the PSE candidate, she will include Garmendia "without any doubt" on her electoral list because she "is a very valuable person."
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