The surprised faces of the socialist deputies exemplified the end of an era. It happened last Monday, in the election of the members of the Board of the Valencian Courts. Vox had won the presidency and the PP and the PSPV each got a seat in the vice presidency. The Socialists also hoped to get a secretariat, as did the Popular. But the surprise occurred: the PP gave up part of the votes so that it was Compromís who obtained the representative to the detriment of the socialists.
For weeks, the PSPV had refused to cede one of the two seats on the Board to the Valencianists. On Monday, the Botanic was buried, the pact that had united the left for two legislatures.
The Valencian lefts have begun the crossing of the desert with the bridges broken between them and with the threat of internal processes that can offer not a few political corpses. The most serious case is that of Podemos, which has remained as a residual force, far removed from the Valencian institutions.
Let’s go to Pams. There are not a few who value that complicity between the PSPV and Compromís had faded away a long time ago. Some even go back to the electoral advance that President Ximo Puig decided in 2019 to match the regional elections with the general elections against the opinion of the party led by Mónica Oltra. But the 28-M has liquidated an alliance that for eight years governed the main Valencian institutions, with reasonable stability.
The autonomous and municipal elections have rearmed the sovereignty of each of these parties, who already see the other as a rival, not only in the face of 23-J, but also in the Valencian institutions. The only thing saved, for now, is the understanding at the Provincial Council of Valencia, where they must agree to try, with the collaboration of an independent force from Ontinyent (led by an ex-socialist), to maintain the institution with a progressive government. If this is achieved, it will be the main watchtower of socialists and Compromís in the Valencian Community.
But on an internal scale, unrest is also brewing, with probable consequences. In the PSPV there is a drive to change leadership, led by the figure of the mayor of Mislata, Carlos Fernández Bielsa, and virtual president of the Provincial Council of Valencia if the agreement is confirmed. His group managed to get Ferraz to deauthorize part of the lists that Ximo Puig had presented to Congress and the Senate for 23-J. A clear warning that the authority of the still president is being questioned. There is a fear that a tragic travesty will begin like in 1995, when the socialists were lost in a thousand internal battles, while the PP extended its hegemony for 20 years.
In Compromís it is not clear for now who holds the leadership beyond the institutional roles. The eternal coalition of three parties aspires to reach the stability that would give it to form a single party or a federation. Having lost the government and, with it, many places to place colleagues, the battle for positions has already come to light. In Iniciativa, they believe that the majority Més Compromís, former Bloc, is trying to keep everything, taking advantage of the weakness of the ecosocialists after moving to the side of Mónica Oltra and the leadership frustrated by the change of cycle of Aitana Mas.
It remains to be seen how the differences are resolved, and more so when the parties to the left of the PSPV have embarked on the Sumar experiment, the results of which in the long and medium term are not very clear. Compromís already lives in the campaign with EU and it remains to be seen if it does so in the future. Quite a challenge for Joan Baldoví, who will be the trustee, and Vicent Marzà, who will have stripes in the group and has a lot of organic weight in the party.
The Valencian lefts have changed roles among themselves and are facing internal processes at a time when the alliance of the PP and Vox has been consolidated in the Generalitat Valenciana which will be chaired by Carlos Mazón, with the possibility of initiating a counter-reform in the policies that during years they identified a political project, that of the Botanic, which is now history.
