Flurry of resignations in Ciudadanos: the flight of councilors in Madrid adds to the casualties in Zaragoza, Asturias and the Balearic Islands

The deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís (left), and the national spokesperson for Ciudadanos, Patricia Guasp, on March 11 in Madrid.VICTOR LERENA (EFE)

The trickle of dropouts in Ciudadanos has given way in recent days to a tsunami.

With the formal call for the next municipal and regional elections on May 28, the number of positions in the party that renounces the initials multiplies as the time for the registration of candidacies runs out.

A factor that further aggravates the situation of the party, which already had a difficult time maintaining itself after the appointment at the polls, according to most surveys.

Internal sources even speak of "

” of membership drops in recent weeks.

So much so that the technicians —victims in turn of a reduction in staff due to recent layoffs— cannot cope and the requests take longer to resolve than normal.

But the new direction of Ciudadanos downplays the leaks of charges with the elections on top.

"What bothers citizens about the parties is corruption, let them reach into the box," Patricia Guasp, CS's national spokesperson, said on Tuesday in an interview on TVE.

The leader of Ciudadanos thus threw the ball out shortly after EL PAÍS published that there are already six councilors of the Madrid City Council who will not continue as members of Ciudadanos.

The sit-in for the deputy mayor, Begoña Villacís, is in turn a blow to the leadership, with hopes pinned on the Madrid capital to stay afloat despite the foreseeable drop in the number of votes, assumed within the party.

But the Madrid crisis is not an isolated case.

Last Wednesday, the municipal block group of the Zaragoza City Council (6 councilors) announced in a statement that they were all renouncing the initials of the formation by which they managed to enter the government in coalition with the Popular Party.

Also the vice mayor of Zaragoza, Susana Gaspar, from CS.

The national leadership canceled precisely in Aragon and Zaragoza the primaries to choose its regional and municipal candidate due to fear of "a PP takeover from within", for fear of the transfer of positions to the popular ranks.

“Everyone is free to go, but turncoat is a form of corruption.

I don't know why it has normalized”, Guasp has censured.

Executive sources describe those who renounce the "principles" of Ciudadanos as "faces" for making sure they continue to hold public office now that CS is in its lowest hours.

Nor are they surprised by the marches, already expected, and they focus their efforts on the "renewed leadership" that took the reins of the formation in January after tense primaries.

"We are prepared.

We have great teams.

The polls say that we continue to be decisive in Madrid”, said Inés Arrimadas, CS spokesperson in Congress, this Tuesday.

Also this Tuesday the mayor and two councilors of San Juan (Alicante) have left CS.

But to the flight of councilors are also added those of several regional deputies who have recently requested the withdrawal of the party.

Among them, the Asturian parliamentarian Sergio García, who announced his departure on the 3rd, and the Balearic deputy and candidate for the regional Parliament for CS in 2019, Marc Pérez-Ribas.

"Unfortunately Ciudadanos is no longer the party that I joined seven years ago and I do not want my ideas and approaches to be conditioned by a party that no longer counts on me," Pérez-Ribas wrote on his social networks on the 5th.

To them has been added the resignation as a member of the former Secretary of Organization Borja González, confirmed this Monday to this newspaper.

"The act of kneeling before Bolaños and accepting his order to support Montero and Belarra's Podemos is not only compromising the fundamental values ​​of a centrist party, but also a sign of humiliation," González criticized on Twitter, referring to a information published in EL PAÍS, in which it was announced that Ciudadanos is trying to rebuild the bridges blown up with the PSOE as a strategy to survive.

Until now, CS had some 2,800 councilors throughout the country and some fifty regional deputies.

And the year started with 7,642 affiliates up to date with payment.

The barrage of casualties would now leave these figures below.

Begoña Villacís (center) presents her list for the municipal elections on May 28 as a Ciudadanos candidate for Madrid City Council, this Tuesday. Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber