Sánchez will exhibit the action of his Government in all regions

The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, during an act in Valencia this week. Álvaro García

Invited or not, the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, will be very present in the long campaign for the municipal and regional elections on the last Sunday of May.

Its beginning can be considered inaugurated, with the brief Christmas interruption.

The vast majority of the heads of regional government, and the mayors of the main cities with a socialist councilor, do want Sánchez in their territory.

It is not about anything personal, nor about sympathies, although in many cases they exist, but about highlighting the action of the central government in their communities: projects carried out, others underway and a good number in the chapter of electoral promises.

Sánchez is not going to hide, but is going to go out into the open.

The socialist act on Saturday in the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, with Pedro Sánchez as the protagonist, had a special significance, as recognized by the interlocutors consulted.

It will not be different from others in that the general secretary will be present in other territories, like all the national leaders, especially Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the PP, until the elections on May 28, but it does differ in the relevance that the PSOE granted to the electoral battle for the Valencian Community.

The same one that the PP grants him.

In the city of Valencia the municipal world of socialists from all over Spain concentrated with aspirants to reach the municipal baton and some who already achieved it four years ago, or on previous occasions.

“I am going to miss two great ministers”,

Sánchez pointed out with his gaze in the middle of the room, where the head of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and of Health, Carolina Darias, respectively candidates for the mayoralty of Madrid and Las Palmas, were.

The constant applause, among candidates, and from these to Sánchez, showed unity in that family in times of tribulation, and the desire to win.

The focus was placed on the host, the president of the Valencian Community, Ximo Puig, who chained the reminder of actions of his mandate —with a coalition government that despite many vicissitudes has shown remarkable stability— with recognition of some of the works that have depended on the central government and the claim of other pending ones.

Puig is not one of the first-time territorial leaders who were with Sánchez in the primaries against Susana Díaz;

neither when he won, but his pragmatism, in the interest of his Community, has consolidated a relationship of respect and collaboration with Sánchez that is mutual.

Both are going to row together in the task that the PSPV can return to govern with Puig at the head of a coalition Cabinet.

The strategists of the electoral campaign in the federal direction, with the general deputy secretary, María Jesús Montero, at the top, and the organization secretary, Santos Cerdán, in command of the machinery, will be able to move comfortably in almost all the federations.

Collaboration will be intense in the majority, where all support from the federal leadership to the regional and local ones is considered good and necessary.

Even so, the idiosyncrasies and organic and territorial peculiarities of each one of them will be respected to the maximum.

Nobody like the presidents of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, and of Navarra, María Chivite, know how to articulate their campaigns.

Both have Pedro Sánchez;

as well as the president of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, and the head of the Canarian Government, Ángel Víctor Torres.

The balance of the action of the central government in all the autonomous communities allows the president "not to have to hide", say socialist interlocutors.

And he will be present in all the territories, knowing that in each and every one of them there will be or may be groups that boo or yell at him for specific conflicts or for the political and ideological rejection so rooted in very active sectors of the Spanish right. .

Indeed, leaders of the PP recreate themselves in the affirmation that the president of the Government "cannot go out on the street."

With this they count on the PSOE and the security of La Moncloa, but it is nothing strange nor will it inhibit Sánchez from moving around the country.

The socialist leader will be present in Extremadura, where Guillermo Fernández Vara governs and where the footprint of the central government wants to be exhibited.

In the logic of the PSOE to respect the autonomy of its federations in the organization of the campaigns, without any doubt in those that have the Government of the community, or the City Council, such as Abel Caballero, in Vigo;

in A Coruña, Inés Rey;

Óscar Puente, in Valladolid, or Antonio Muñoz Martínez, in Seville, will decide which images to promote.

The strength of the PSOE brand will be taken into account, but in some places the image of the regional president will prevail.

Despite the hurricane winds of the opposition's political discourse, the governing socialist candidates reaffirm that their management, with unprecedented difficulties due to the pandemic and the energy and supply crisis due to the war in Ukraine, is their best guarantee.

Also that of the central government, although the same is maintained by the leaders of the PP of theirs.

This assessment is equally valid for the regional presidents who are furthest away and critical of Pedro Sánchez, such as Emiliano García-Page, from Castilla-La Mancha, and Javier Lambán, from Aragón.

There are no major complaints in those communities about the treatment of the central executive.

Sánchez's risky decisions to favor the Catalan independence movement, in his belief that it will favor "harmony" and they will not commit crimes again, unsettle not only Page and Lambán;

also to the rest of the candidates, in the Government and in the opposition, as is the case of Juan Lobato from Madrid.

If the institutional fight with the conservative sector of the judicial leadership and the Constitutional Court continues over time, as well as the Government's response to the blockades with legislative shortcuts, the management realities to which the regional and municipal candidates cling as Cover letter can blow up.

Today, Sánchez and most of the barons trust their works and the judgment of broad layers of society.

The cohesion of the PSOE is consolidated, according to different territorial interlocutors, if the PP waves proclamations about the irreversible path of Spain towards a dictatorship.

More information

This is how a difficult decision was forged: Sánchez's commitment to close the 'procés'

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