Final point. The electoral campaign of 28-M lowered the curtain yesterday. Under cover, yes, due to the intense rain that fell throughout the afternoon in the region. Last calls to vote in a week marked by the scandals linked to the PSOE that have dotted the entire Spanish geography. Also in Madrid, with the opening of the oral trial against the mayor of Galapagar. This was referred to by the PP candidate for the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, supported by Núñez Feijóo at the Ifema Conference Center: «The campaign with which Pedro Sánchez intended to buy Spain, from the Council of Ministers to the Council of Ministers , with everyone’s money, it has become his longest campaign… one more week and there is not a crime typified in the Penal Code that does not lead a candidate from the left… what has happened shows that Spain is still alive, that its Institutions are still resisting and that the PSOE have not found out: Sánchez is going to leave as he arrived, with an attempted punch. Martínez-Almeida insisted on the same line: «The defeat of sanchismo in Madrid will resonate throughout Spain. The repeal of sanchismo begins with the municipal elections.
From Más Madrid, Mónica García called for a large mobilization of Madrid residents to “throw out the Gürtel and Zendal cheaters”, while Rita Maestre urged the residents of the capital to promote a change of government in Cibeles. The PSOE candidate, Juan Lobato, stressed that the PSOE ballot means “the commitment to quality public education” and asked that the progressives “stand up” and give the “surprise” in these elections. “Efficiency, good management, illusion and the desire to govern” are the values that Reyes Maroto, head of the PSOE poster in the capital, defended as the axis of his proposal to the residents. Begoña Villacís, Cs candidate, claimed her fight against “populism” and asked for a “brave” vote for this Sunday. All of them will be measured at the polls in 24 hours, as they have already done throughout the two weeks of the campaign that Madrid has run through.
Ayuso-La Razón Monastery
1.- The absolute majority that Ayuso seeks to be free or another co-government with Vox
The polls published throughout the campaign coincide in placing Isabel Díaz Ayuso, PP candidate for the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, on the edge of an absolute majority. In the environment of the 68 deputies. If she succeeds, she will be able to govern “totally free”, as she herself acknowledged to LA RAZÓN in an interview: “Vox has openly decided that its enemy is the Popular Party and has thought, I don’t know at what point, that if Madrid it was good for me too. And that, therefore, the strategy had to be changed. For her part, the Vox headliner, Rocío Monasterio, has taught right-wing voters throughout these two weeks, with a clear message: only if those of Abascal are decisive, that is, if they succeed in the polls strong enough to demand their entry into an eventual coalition with the PP or if, from outside the Executive, they can condition the governability of the region, there will be an option to apply some recipes from their electoral program. The rupture staged in the Vallecas Assembly by Ayuso and Monasterio has had its continuity in the campaign and, especially, in the debate held on Telemadrid. The Vox candidate made the president ugly for not having repealed the Trans Law or having undertaken transformative reforms in Health or Education. Ayuso regretted that the blockade of Monasterio and left-wing groups have frustrated, for example, the approval of budgets for this year. And after Sunday, she would like that scenario not to happen again: “If it depends on me, I would prefer not to see myself in the same situation of constant blockade again, much less return to unstable governments.”
Almeida-Maestre T. Gallardo The Reason
2.- Almeida, faced with the challenge of breaking “the winner’s curse” against Maestre
In 2015, Manuela Carmena became mayor of Madrid after coming second in an election in which the PP won, led in that battle by Esperanza Aguirre. Four years later, the curse of the winner in Cibeles came true again: Carmena, after four years in office, managed to be the most voted, but the baton went to José Luis Martínez-Almeida, candidate of the PP. The arithmetic that sometimes results in the ballot box is capricious and now, in tomorrow’s municipal elections, this eight-year trend could be broken, at least if we pay attention to the polls. According to these estimates, Almeida will come first and may be mayor. With several unknowns to be resolved. Whether or not he will reach the magic number of 29 councilors that would guarantee him an absolute majority. And if, otherwise, he will be able to redirect a relationship with Vox in low hours. The balance of his management – from taxation to the environmental field – and the Ciudadanos debacle bring him closer to his second term. Of what there is little doubt at this point is that the only alternative on the left to an Almeida government, at least to dispute the mayoralty, is on the ballot for Más Madrid. The shipwreck of the Reyes Maroto campaign – the scenes of the punctures in several of the PSOE rallies, the erratic intervention of the ex-minister in the electoral debate and Carmena’s explicit support for the party she founded four years ago – have consolidated the position by Rita Master. The Más Madrid candidate will be second and has put on the table the endorsement of the former judge and her knowledge of the consistory, from the government and from the opposition, as her main asset.
Monica Garcia-Lobato T. Gallardo La Razón
3.- The “sorpasso” that Mónica García wants to consolidate at the expense of Lobato
In the elections of May 4, 2021, in which Ayuso swept away his opponents and stayed on the threshold of an absolute majority, Más Madrid and Mónica García also made history. His “sorpasso” to the PSOE was one of the headlines that left the night on the left, along with the bad result of Ángel Gabilondo and the goodbye to the politics of Pablo Iglesias. Although tied at 24 deputies, Más Madrid went on to lead the opposition to Ayuso. And he issued a warning: they were then beginning to prepare to conquer the Puerta del Sol in 2023. That moment has arrived and it does not seem that Mónica García’s men are in a position to reach the promised land. The playing field has changed and the polls will decide this Sunday if it is the doctor or Juan Lobato, candidate of the PSOE, who leads the opposition. The long months of pre-campaign disputed in the context that marked the strike of Primary Care doctors multiplied the visibility of García in front of a Lobato who can boast of both municipal management -as mayor of Soto del Real- and of knowing the formula to win elections . The controversies in which the Más Madrid candidate has been involved, especially the one related to the collection of the thermal social bonus, have harmed her personal story. With a sustained program in close politics, García has claimed her project as the only one that puts Madrid at the center of her proposals and above the interests of the rest of the formations at the national level. In addition, the ballast that the management of Pedro Sánchez supposes for the head of the PSOE poster plays in her favor. A factor that the almost irrelevant role of the President of the Government in the region has only made evident.
Villacís-Jacinto T. Gallardo La Razón
4.- Villacís and Jacinto: from the controversy of the escrache to the challenge of leaning out to the 5%
They compete in different fields, although parallel. The Ciudadanos candidate for mayor of the capital, Begoña Villacís, and the Podemos candidate for the regional Presidency, Alejandra Jacinto. And yet, the goal of both passes through the same number: 5%. Reaching that threshold will be a success for both because it would allow the orange project in Cibeles and the purple bench in Vallecas to stay alive. There is no unanimity in the polls on the matter. The deputy mayor of the Almeida government is risking a good part of the hopes of her party in these elections. With the brand sunk at the national level, if Villacís achieves the epic of obtaining representation in the Madrid council, it will be a personal success attributable almost exclusively to her. In the case of the head of the Podemos poster, the last stages of the campaign seem to have strengthened her options. Although it has been at the cost of muddying the debate and submerging the campaign in the mud. The image of the candidate was seriously affected by the electoral debate in which she resorted to pointing out Ayuso’s brother as a weapon of electoral confrontation.
The search for 5% of the votes is not the only thing that has connected both candidates during the campaign that ended yesterday. Villacís recounted in an interview in LA RAZÓN – he insisted on it during the debate – how Alejandra Jacinto participated in the escrache that Podemos executed against her when she was pregnant: «That woman was there. I was very scared because I had two days left to give birth. There was a guy who threw himself on the ground so that I fell on my stomach. That is Alejandra Jacinto». Villacís asked Podemos for an apology, which has not yet arrived.
Ortega Smith-Maroto T. Gallardo La Razón
5.- The PSOE-Vox clamp that will fight to avoid irrelevance in Cibeles
The six-person debate between the candidates for the Madrid City Council confronted the representatives of the PSOE and Vox in some phases. Former minister Reyes Maroto accused deputy Javier Ortega Smith of denial and emphasized how Almeida will have to throw himself into the arms of Vox if he does not reach an absolute majority tomorrow. The candidate from Abascal’s party also opted in this debate, and in a large part of his interventions in the campaign, to elevate the speech to the national arena to attack Pedro Sánchez and thus identify Maroto with the policies carried out from Moncloa. This has been compatible with both
-it was clearly perceived on Telemadrid- they have been giving shape to a clamp against Almeida by pointing out, each one from their particular perspective, the matters in which, in the opinion of both, the mayor has not kept his word or with the expectations generated, especially with regard to measures on mobility. They do not start among the favourites, but they will aspire this Sunday to meet very different objectives. In the case of Vox, Ortega Smith has already made clear his intention to demand to enter the Almeida government in the proportion in which the neighbors decide. An absolute majority of Almeida in Cibeles would condemn Vox to irrelevance by not being able to condition – as has happened in recent years with budgets and some ordinances – the day-to-day of municipal management. Given the presumable debacle of Ciudadanos and the foreseeable fall of Más Madrid in its number of mayors, Maroto is counting on finishing third: only a significant recovery in votes compared to 2019 would give her position in the consistory some air.
