A PSPV deputy admitted a few days ago that the Valencian left is still in shock. Although it has been almost 150 days since they lost the municipal and regional elections, some have still not put on the fatigues that the opposition requires. There are those who even go further and disgrace their own people who still act as if they were in power. The truth is that, without a well-oiled left, the new Government chaired by Carlos Mazón is imposing his story.
At the moment, it is the PP’s favorite topics – amnesty, tax reduction, port of Valencia – that set the agenda beyond the (serious) contradictions of the Consell members regarding gender violence and climate change.
The lack of internal renewal after the defeat blurs the faces of those who must confront Mazón. In the PSPV they are still thinking about the image of former president Ximo Puig’s empty seat on the day that the new president of the PP faced the first control session and emerged from it rather gracefully. In this regard there are contrary opinions among socialist deputies; There are those who believe that the former president should be present in these plenary sessions.
Puig has managed to keep the party united, which it already is, given the dangerous history of the Valencian socialists in terms of wars and internal disputes. The problem is that the PSPV has not yet found the formula to fit the work of the opposition with a former president who continues to be the absolute reference of the party, a trustee who is making her debut in Parliament or a growing Government delegate who could be key in the future of PSPV. All this, while the provincial presidents of Valencia and Alicante await the moment when hostilities begin to mobilize their followers.
The provisional nature of the Government of Spain, in office since the general elections in July, does not help the socialists to clarify the panorama and focus on building an opposition for, at least, the next four years. Will Ximo Puig go to Madrid? Everyone is waiting for Pedro Sánchez to be re-elected in an investiture whose deadlines have not yet been scheduled and to light the fuse of the party congresses.
Also Compromís – which seems convinced that the techniques that allowed it to come to power in 2015 with the use of social networks are still in force – is in an interim situation, with Joan Baldoví trying to maintain the media pull he achieved in Madrid .
With Més Compromís waiting for a congress that endorses an unknown leader, and Initiative that has not yet recovered from the departure of Mónica Oltra. An attempt was made to build a leadership around Aitana Mas, but the alternative has not fully caught on in the ecosocialist ranks.
And in the midst of this internal chaos and the occasional dispute after the elections – officially the organic relations between Més Compromís and Initiative are suspended – it is still not clear if Compromís will opt to transform itself into a federation of parties. Now they are, simply, an electoral coalition of three different formations that every time elections approach they fight until an agreement is reached.
It is also not at all clear how Sumar will fit into this space of the Valencian left; a project that, depending on how the investiture goes, can be consolidated as an alternative.
All of this, together with the fact that, in the first months of administration, a government always enjoys the so-called honeymoon effect, has made the beginning of Carlos Mazón’s term quite bearable. This being the case, it has often given the impression that the biggest problem the head of the Consell has is his fellow travelers from the far right. And that the autonomous Vox – with low-profile councilors such as Vicente Barrera or José Luis Aguirre – bear little resemblance to the Vox of the Valencia City Council led by the combative Juanma Badenas, who has managed, together with his councilors, to enter the local government after months being mayor María José Català’s battering ram.
