The councilor of San Fernando de Henares, Alberto Hontecillas (i);
the president of Contigo, José Enrique Agua (c), and the mayor of Paracuellos de Jarama, Jorge Alberto Campos (d), this weekend in Madrid.CEDED
The mayor with the most votes for Ciudadanos in the Community of Madrid, Jorge Alberto Campos, already has a destination for the next elections in May.
The councilor of Paracuellos de Jarama, with 26,450 inhabitants, will attend this time for a recently created party, Contigo, with a marked "municipalist" accent and "social liberal" inspiration, founded in 2017 by ex-positions of Cs critical of the then leadership .
Campos —who was also the mayor with the most votes for Cs in all cities with more than 20,000 residents in Spain in the 2019 local elections—, announced on Thursday that he is leaving Ciudadanos, discontent with the refoundation process and the drift of the party.
"Citizens have no future," he declared in a statement published on social networks.
Campos will formally announce his signing for Contigo this Monday.
“We have found a party with a very municipalist project.
A party that puts the neighbor at the center of politics and is very white.
We are not going to be limited to the hours of agreements except with the extremes.
They leave you free to make your lists, your program.
It is like a federation of municipal parties, ”explains the mayor of Paracuellos to EL PAÍS in a telephone conversation, in which he reveals his future.
But Campos is not the only one who goes to Contigo.
The first deputy mayor of San Fernando de Henares, who also left Ciudadanos on Thursday and became a non-attached councilor, also joins this recently created party.
“We explore various possibilities, other platforms.
But we believe that Contigo is the best project”, adds Alberto Hontecillas.
More information
The most voted mayor of CS in the Community of Madrid leaves the party: "Ciudadanos has no future"
Contigo was founded in 2017 by former Cs officials in the Valencian Community who were critical of the management of the then leader, Albert Rivera.
“The founding base is people who realized that Ciudadanos was set up to be the white label of the Popular Party and we rebelled.
Albert Rivera had him kidnapped and we decided to make an independent alternative," explains the party's president, José Enrique Aguar, by phone.
“We are very liberal economically, and very social democratic in our position on rights and public spending,” he adds.
Today they have 3,016 affiliates and are established throughout the territory.
They ran for the first time in elections in the European and municipal elections on May 26, 2019. They won two mayoralties and 22 councillors, among whom are councilors in Consistory of the provinces of Seville,
Gualadajara, Valencia and Salamanca.
Normally the brand they register is called Contigo plus the name of the specific municipality.
For example, With You Cartagena.
But, from those elections until now, they have added another dozen councilors thanks to charges that they have left the party for which they ran in 2019 and have joined Contigo.
This weekend, the executive has held a meeting in Madrid to manage the new incorporations and other organic issues.
In addition to Campos and Hontecillas, they will appear in Coslada and Rivas-Vaciamadrid also with ex-charges from Cs.
In total, fifty Ciudadanos militants have joined this week.
So now they will proceed to set up new groups.
And they hope that the list will increase, especially taking into account the complicated situation of Ciudadanos, for which the polls predict very bad results in the May 28 elections.
To the serious crisis of CS, which has just completed the refoundation process with a general assembly and some primary fights, the movement of Begoña Villacís has been added this weekend and has convulsed the national executive.
The deputy mayor of Madrid asks to give municipal officials freedom so that they are the ones who decide whether to attend under another brand or together with other formations.
"The words of Villacís herself reflect the moment we are living in," says the mayor of Paracuellos de Jarama.
Villacís also commented with councilors from his team and with other members of the party his intention to join the PP as an "internal current", as EL PAÍS announced this Friday.
An extreme that is flatly rejected by the majority of deputies in Congress.
Regarding the national leadership, Adrián Vázquez —general secretary— and Mariano Fuentes —deputy secretary of CS and councilor in the Madrid City Council, from the Villacís wing— met on Friday morning to address organic issues.
Management sources confirm that the executive weighs from presenting "lists in all places" to proposing "joint lists".
“We have talked about different possibilities.
All of them from lists on all sites to joint lists, and so on.
But as a comment and never as a decision”, explains a member of the management.
The executive meets this Monday, like every week, with a matter as crucial as that of Villacís on the table.
And also with the transfer of charges from her party to Contigo.
"We hope that people will continue to join in the coming months," anticipates the president of the formation.
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