“Change is possible, this time it is,” ex-minister Reyes Maroto said yesterday in the presentation of the socialist candidacy for mayor of Madrid that she is leading before the municipal elections on 28-M.
Although the PSOE leadership admits to being less optimistic than Maroto, everyone agrees that the current mayor of the PP, José Luis MartÃnez-Almeida, is now “more vulnerable.” And that the electoral result could make viable a majority of the left that would threaten the revalidation of the position that he has held since, in 2019, he evicted Manuela Carmena from the Plaza de Cibeles thanks to the coalition agreement that he sealed with Ciudadanos, with the support of Vox .
Maroto trusts in a double carambola at the polls so that a majority of the left will effectively unseat the PP in the capital. The formula that the Socialists caress is that Ciudadanos, whose candidacy is again led by the vice mayor Begoña VillacÃs, fails to exceed the bar of 5% of the vote and, therefore, does not manage to enter the City Council, despite the fact that in 2019 it was the third political force in the capital. All the ballots that the orange formation still obtains would therefore go “to the trash”, if VillacÃs does not reach that minimum 5% of the votes to obtain municipal representation, subtracting seats from the right-wing block of the PP and Vox.
At the same time, the Socialists trust that the candidacy of Podemos, headed by Roberto Sotomayor, does exceed the 5% bar and achieve a representation in the City Council that will help to add, together with the PSOE and Más Madrid, a majority of the left that exceeds to those on the right.
Maroto herself, however, is well aware of the very uphill comeback that she would need to certify at the polls to lead the left-wing bloc and outvote Más Madrid. Even with Carmena as the headliner, this formation became the first political force in the capital in 2019. In those last municipal elections, the PSOE candidacy, headed by Pepu Hernández –the former national basketball coach signed by Pedro Sánchez–, achieved its worst historical record: with just 13.7% of the votes, it sank to fourth position, behind Más Madrid, the PP and Ciudadanos.
Despite having been Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce for five years (2018-2023), Maroto still has a significant degree of ignorance among the people of Madrid, but in her team they assure that she already obtains a better rating in the polls than the current candidate for More Madrid, Rita Maestre. And they trust the electoral campaign that Maroto gains recognition and the PSOE continues to rise in voting intentions.
At yesterday’s ceremony in the Plaza de la Villa together with Minister Margarita Robles and the leader of the Madrid socialists, Juan Lobato, Maroto warned against the “regression” that in his opinion Almeida represents for Madrid “who is going to need Vox to governâ€. And he also used his management experience in the Government against “other parties that live on illusion.” “Transformation yes, but with management,” he defended, in a veiled allusion to Más Madrid.
