The spokesman for Ciudadanos, Edmundo Bal, at a press conference, this Monday, at the party’s headquarters.
The Executive of Citizens has downplayed this Monday the importance of the manifesto signed by some thirty regional deputies, councilors and members of Cs in which they request the resignation of the president of the party, Inés Arrimadas, and the rest of the leadership. The leadership considers that behind the action undertaken by the promoters of SomosCs, a platform under which the critical current has been grouped, there is a hidden desire to “harm the party” and prepare the ground to position themselves as future PP candidates. “Ask these 30 if they plan to join the Popular Party lists, because I, of course, would demand an absolutely unequivocal commitment that they are going to be part of Ciudadanos, that they are going to be part of this party,” he stressed. Edmundo Bal, spokesman for Cs, at a press conference after the permanent committee meeting.
The direction of Ciudadanos observes in the arguments put forward by the thirty positions, councilors and affiliates of SomosCs in their manifesto the same motivations that former members of Cs used in the past before joining the Popular Party. Also from former members who left the formation but who kept their minutes as an institutional position. “After that mistaken campaign that the Popular Party raised against Citizens and that Alberto Núñez Feijóo seems to have left aside, everyone who wanted to leave left. And that those of us who are here are precisely to row together for the benefit of this liberal project”, Bal has riveted. Sources from the Permanent Executive rule out the hand of the PP behind SomosCs, but consider that the strategy of its promoters, “which obviously harms” the party, may be a “cover letter” to join this formation in the face of the elections Next year.
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The SomosCs movement has published this Monday morning the manifesto in which they demand the dismissal of the entire Executive and the imminent convening of an extraordinary assembly. And the platform’s website is now available to collect the necessary signatures to force the conclave to be held. According to the statutes, a third of the affiliates are necessary to demand the calling of the assembly. “The latest data that we have communicated is 12,000 affiliates,” Bal assured. But internal estimates and in light of the latest Ciudadanos budgets, the figure would be around 10,000. For SomosCs the real figure is around 6,000. Among the signatories there are party officials throughout Spain, such as the spokesman for Citizens in the Parliament of Asturias, Sergio García, and the deputy mayor of Zaragoza, Sara Fernández. In the leadership of the party, they consider that the strategy of its promoters, “which obviously harms” the party, can be a “cover letter” to join the popular ones in the face of next year’s electoral cycle.
The dome of the Arrimadas formation considers the holding of an extraordinary assembly inappropriate until the refoundation process in which Ciudadanos has been immersed since July is completed, and which it intends to culminate in January. By then, the assembly is not ruled out. It will be at that moment when the proposals of the 2,000 members who have signed up in the active listening process and also of the organic positions will be submitted for endorsement by the bases. Among the postulates that are being debated are the name, the color and the continuity of the current leader. Bal has asked the critics to participate actively in this renewal of the formation with the contributions they deem appropriate. “This is the path in which the party has decided,” the spokesman reiterated.
From SomosCs they consider that delaying the assembly until January means being late for the electoral campaign of next year’s local and regional elections, and even more so if one takes into account that the candidates have to start defending the brand from this fall, when the head of the list are elected. From the Executive they ask for caution and point out that the candidates from small municipalities may be defined for October, but not those from large cities, whose appointment could be pending in the refoundation process. In any case, the permanent Executive maintains that, since the publication of the manifesto, the members of the directive are receiving “many messages of support” from the militancy.
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