Fernando Giner is one of the few that remains of that new batch of politicians that Ciudadanos elevated to the institutions in a takeoff as brilliant as its fall is intuited. Since then Giner has continued to lead the municipal group of the Valencia City Council with six councillors. This economist and business advisor has been one of the few who has resisted in a party that has come to have, in these two tortuous legislatures, up to six different spokespersons in Les Corts Valencianes: Carolina Punset, Alexis Marí, Mari Carmen Sánchez, Toni Cantó , Ruth Merino and, now, Mamen Peris.
Of these, the first head of the bill (Punset) is currently commissioner for European Affairs and Strategic Initiatives for the Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana and a member of the promoting group of the civic platform in support of Ximo Puig for the upcoming elections; Mari has left politics; Cantó failed in his time with the PP in Madrid, in the Spanish Office and now works on a television linked to the extreme right and Merino has joined the economic team of the PP; everything indicates that he will go on the autonomous lists of Carlos Mazón. Only Mari Carmen Sánchez continues with the card of a party (she is a councilor in the Alicante City Council) to which Mamen Peris tries to give an extra life with a controlled equidistance between the PP and the PSPV.
By the way, in these two legislatures of parliamentary life (and hence the tortuous), before finishing his term, the group of orange deputies broke up. In 2017, four parliamentarians went non-attached and, in 2021, five did the same. In both contexts, the argument was the party’s change of course.
All this draws a situation that is not easy for Fernando Giner, who has seen how many of his current battle companions have abandoned the ship or even signed up for their political rivals with harsh criticism of their training. In political gossip, the possibility that the Cs spokesman in the cap i casal consistory, due to his public relevance, could be a good chrome for the PP album has always been discussed. However, his way of working and that of the local PP leader, María José Catalá, have never gotten along. It is also said that he has had other siren songs that he, unlike other former leaders of his party, has ignored.
Thus, in the middle of an internal storm, with the national primaries still to be resolved and the party open on the air, one of the few certainties that was available was that Giner would repeat for the third time as a candidate for Mayor of Valencia. This was already announced in September last year.
The big cities and Valencia in particular have always been one of the strong points of the orange formation. Thus, for example, in the last regional elections (April 2019), in the capital of Túria, Cs achieved 2,000 more votes than the PP. A month later, when the party was already beginning its fall, Giner managed to keep the six councilors; “The second best result in all of Spain”, they value from his team.
Now the challenge is enormous. Although it would be enough for Giner to retain 30% of the 68,293 votes he achieved in the 2019 municipal elections, to maintain his representation in the consistory led by Joan Ribó, the task is complicated in a party that seems to be cracking little by little as the polls draw near. Both in Madrid and in Andalusia they were left without parliamentary representation and only in Castilla y León did they maintain a seat in the difficult regional elections of the previous electoral cycle.
That is his big goal. Achieve two councilors and, above all, be the key to condition the Valencia City Council. In public statements, Giner has stated that if it depends on him “Ribó will not be mayor”. However, he intends to condition the executive and that the PP is not in the hands of Vox.
According to Cs’s calculations, the party would move in a range of 4 or 4.6%, having stopped the bleeding in the city of Valencia. However, he is aware that the campaign can polarize positions and that if polls come out that are not favorable to him, the road will be even more complicated for him.
For this reason, the local leader has tried to erase himself in recent months from the internal battle that his party has experienced; move from organic positions and focus solely on the city of Valencia, visiting the neighborhoods and seeking contact with civil society. Able to reach agreements with Compromís and the PSPV during the pandemic, but with a conservative profile, Giner has not gotten involved in organic issues or in the ideological turns of the party.
Of course, he has reached an unwritten agreement with the new regional management to make his list and form his own team for the municipal elections of the next 28M, where he is the leader of Ciudadanos who has some option (albeit minimal) to survive .
