The decision of the Ciudadanos executive not to attend the general elections has triggered a new internal riot with Edmundo Bal and Francisco Igea as leaders: both accuse the leadership of keeping the campaign money to get the party’s general secretary, Adrián Vázquez, revalidate his seat as MEP next year. It is not corruption, but it is “corruption”, as they pointed out on Sunday in an act with critical militants in Madrid.
“When you dedicate everyone’s funds to your own project and not to everyone’s, we are talking about corruption. Decisions are made under a veil of legality by the national executive committee, but they are immoral. That money is in the accounts to satisfy the common project in which we are all rowing, not for the personal interests of the directors”, exclaimed Bal along with Igea and Santiago Saura, outgoing councilor in the Madrid City Council.
Thus, the leadership of Ciudadanos has met this Tuesday to take action on the matter and is studying what sanctions it can apply, based on the party’s statutes, to those whose public demonstrations “exceed political criticism” and go beyond “thick lines reds” with their “personal attacks. Sources from the executive assure that “it’s okay” and remember that members have rights but also obligations, so they do not accept that in the Bal and Igea environment there is even talk of “squatters” to refer to the members of the orange dome .
At the moment, it has not been specified what these possible sanctions will consist of, but in the executive they are very clear that a democratically elected leadership can make the decisions it deems appropriate, no matter how “painful” they may be, such as not going to the polls in such general “polarized” like those of July, for which reason the orange dome is considering adopting disciplinary measures that can lead to the suspension of membership or even expulsion from the party.
The clashes between Bal, deputy spokesperson for Ciudadanos in Congress until its dissolution due to the electoral advance, and Igea, the party’s lone attorney in the Castilla y León Courts, with the leadership of the liberal formation come from afar. The first faced the candidacy of Vázquez and Patricia Guasp from the Balearic Islands in primaries, who have piloted the course of Ciudadanos since the general assembly last January, and the second disputed the leadership of Inés Arrimadas when Albert Rivera resigned, in November 2019.
The march of Nacho Martín Blanco, who will head the list of the PP for Barcelona after having defended the dissolution of Ciudadanos as a member of its executive, has inflamed the struggle between the opposing sectors of the party: “Two weeks ago he was our spokesman in Parliament , member of the permanent executive and a trusted man of our secretary. He voted in favor of not presenting the party to the elections. The party did not, but he did. Here we are the traitors. The traitors at home. Those loyal to the PP”, ironized Igea on Twitter.
For Bal, the leadership, which today has endorsed its decision not to attend the general elections on July 23 with the argument that Ciudadanos must “rearm itself organically and intellectually” before returning to the electoral fight, is “bunkerized and entrenched”. , but believes that “there is still time” to rectify and “not leave orphans” the 300,000 voters who took the orange ballot in the last local and regional elections in May. There are six days left for the presentation of the lists in the electoral boards.
