The candidates for the Cs Marcos Morales and Laura Alves primaries.Citizens
At the age of 19, Marcos Morales began in the summer to invest his free time in something that is now his habit: using his Twitter profile to discuss the crisis that Ciudadanos is going through.
Interested in politics and a member of the party founded by Albert Rivera, he began to promote these live conversation debates motivated by the electoral disaster of the Andalusian elections in June.
A meeting space to which more angry Cs supporters joined, as in his case, with the decisions of the leadership.
The talks lengthened over the months, and also his discontent, which led Morales to present his own candidacy for the primaries to lead the formation.
“We are that fly that is between Inés [Arrimadas] and Edmundo [Bal] bothering on a political level.
And we have the opportunity to be the voice of many affiliates who are very tired and who were not going to feel represented either with Edmundo or with Inés' list," says Morales, even though they have practically no chance of succeeding in the imminent primaries of the formation.
This Tuesday, he presented with his fellow "rebels" the candidacy
The base of the change
, before barely a dozen people at the Madrid headquarters of the party.
Despite his low relevance, without an organic position and being a total unknown, his candidacy obtained the necessary support to participate in the internal election process: 142 endorsements.
To be able to attend, at least 1.5% of the total number of militants who can participate had to be achieved, a total of 7,762.
After the bleeding suffered by Cs, with around 65% fewer affiliates in two years, it was enough to add 114 guarantees.
Also, thanks to social networks, Morales has been able to form that list made up of 21 names with affiliates based in other territories.
The majority with little relevance in the organization, among which there are some councilors, both young and veteran.
But all with a common cause: their opposition to the decisions made by the executive and their rejection of the other candidacies that concur,
whom they describe as "government" and both represent the "apparatus".
The other two lists with which they compete are the one headed by the MEP Adrián Vázquez and the coordinator of Cs in the Balearic Islands, Patricia Guasp —supported by Inés Arrimadas—, and the one led by the parliamentary spokesman, Edmundo Bal, and the Madrid councilor Santiago Saura .
Which brought together 1,367 and 679 endorsements, respectively.
Morales is accompanied in the electoral project by the councilor of the El Álamo City Council (10,123 inhabitants, Madrid) Laura Alves, 29 years old.
"The decisions that have been made by the executive have not been coherent and have not been able to transmit confidence to our voters," she added during the presentation Alves, who aspires to the position of general secretary.
"In those conversations on Twitter we found freedom to express ourselves about the abandonment that we find in small municipalities with the party organs."
A law student at the University of Murcia, Marcos Morales joined Ciudadanos in 2021 after another electoral bump, that of the May 24 elections for the Madrid Assembly.
In them, as in Andalusia, Cs was erased from the parliamentary map after governing in coalition with the PP.
“I joined there because I define myself as a person who really likes lost causes.
When I saw that we were going through such a hard time, I considered that we had more reasons to be in the project and promote it from within”, recalls Morales, vehemently and with much smooth talk.
The spiral of electoral debacles, like the one in Madrid and the last one in Andalusia, caused Arrimadas to start the process of refounding Cs.
A project that will culminate next week with the primaries and the general assembly, which will take place a day later, between January 14 and 15.
A renewal process that Morales and his team call "unreal", "opaque" and "directed" by the president of Ciudadanos.
In the turn to speak, another critical affiliate intervened harshly from her seat among the few occupied seats:
—This third way has disappointed me a lot.
To be a politician one must have been educated, one must have worked.
I understand that you don't feel represented.
But I believe that any type of person can practice politics.
And this is Ciudadanos, the party of discrepancy," Morales replied.
