The "talents" are quoted high in the Popular Party of Madrid. That is the word they use in the party to refer to leaders of the Latino community with the ability to weave a network of new voters in the municipal and regional elections of May 28, such as soccer coaches, commercials, musicians, presidents of folkloric associations or evangelical pastors. Thus, attracting members and supporters, some have gained positions in the party, whose ranks are being transformed with the incorporation of new faces.
Ramsés Corrales, 44, is a Bolivian-born journalist who hosts a program called Hispanos on Radio Tentación. He is also a district member in the Junta de Villaverde, in the south of the city of Madrid. Due to his profession as a communicator, he has always had a lot of contact with Bolivian associations in the Community of Madrid. When there are events in the Hispanic world of Madrid such as fundraising for a sick person, or a party for Mother's Day, he is usually invited as a reference of the Bolivian community. He does not go as Ramses of the PP, but as Ramses community leader, he explains. This is where conversations arise, often at the initiative of stakeholders.
"What do I do to be part of the party?" they ask.
"Talent is a word we use to refer to community leaders," explains Corrales. "They don't have to be leaders of a group of 200 people. You can be a musician in a rock band. We have artist groups made up of six people who support us. The fact is that they add up," he continues. Much has changed this party since 2008, when he joined. There were other Latinos, but they were "white." Some looked at him badly. "They told me to have wide backs and they were right."
He has seen a sea change in the importance the party places on Latino communities. "I think we are the spearhead as there were others who did decades ago in the United States. Now we are going to see for the first time the recognition of the Hispanic vote."
Several of these talents met Thursday at an Ecuadorian restaurant in the Tetuan district of the capital, La Perla del Pacífico. The meeting was attended by Inmaculada Sanz, the campaign director of Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida. There was talk of the campaign that began this Friday and two events that they are trying to schedule for next week of the mayor with Latinos in Tetuán and another of President Ayuso in Leganés. "It's a very important part of Madrid society," says Sanz. "There are many people who have come from Latin America and today Madrid is a focus of attraction. They leave countries where there are many problems of freedom and before that focus of attraction I think was more in the North American part, but at the moment Madrid is certainly an attractive place for them and, therefore, we will have a lot of contact with them. "
Supporters and leaders of the PP this Thursday at the Madrid restaurant La Perla del Pacífico. In the center with blue shirt Carmen Cervantes, national secretary of Migrations in the PP. Behind her, Ramsés Corrales, vocal in the District Board of Villaverde (Madrid) and below crouched with white shirt and thumbs up Marino Gutiérrez, in charge of the Hispanic vote in the southern zone of the Community.
The PP of Madrid is the party that has most openly addressed Latinos as a differentiated bloc, importing from the United States electoral labels such as Hispanics with the PP. Its rally at the end of March called Europe is Hispanic drew attention for the hallelujahs launched by the evangelical pastor Yadira Maestre and for the little dances of the national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida. But the Hispanic strategy of the PP goes beyond the churches and can suppose the 28-M an additional boost to its candidates in Madrid. In the PP they see as a reef those voters, whom they call "the new Madrileños". They are a fishing ground to be exploited in front of the Spanish population of origin, with ideas about politics more consolidated and, therefore, more difficult to shape. It is also a group with a growing weight. In the Community of Madrid, immigrants have gone from 5% of the population in 2000 (only 260,507 out of a total of 5.2 million people) to 21% in January 2022 (1.4 million out of a total of 6.7 million people). Of those, 817,555 are from Latin America.
Polls on these voters are lacking in Spain, but academic studies have suggested that Hispanic immigrants lean to the left because of their more disadvantaged socioeconomic status. However, the PP could win broad support in communities such as Venezuela, clearly tilted to the right.
Marino Gutiérrez, a 55-year-old businessman of Ecuadorian origin, is in charge of the Hispanic vote in the south of the Community, the working-class territory that includes municipalities such as Parla or Leganés. It is the red belt, a complicated area. Ayuso was the most voted in 2021, but the left bloc continued to add more votes than the right. "Obviously in some parts of the Community we are stronger than in others," he says, "but we always try to replicate the model of looking for a leader in each area and growing through it."
Marino Gutiérrez this Thursday at the start of the Popular Party campaign, in the Plaza de Felipe II in Madrid.Claudio Álvarez
Gutierrez began weaving his network of contacts in 2010, as a mobilizer of the vote in Spain for the center-right party that governs Ecuador, the CREO Movement. He did not join the PP until 2017, when he came into contact with the Venezuelan Gustavo Eustache, who today holds a position in the PP of Madrid, secretary of Nuevos Madrileños, and is also a candidate for regional deputy on the Ayuso list.
Until that year, Gutiérrez had shown no interest in Spanish politics and had never voted for Spanish parties. "It happened to me what happens to many Hispanics here, who do not know how Spanish politics works. That's why our goal now is to activate that vote," he says. "We are waking up to exercise our right."
Contact the author by mail on fpeinado@elpais.es or by Twitter at @FernandoPeinado
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