The methodology and deadlines that had been offered to relieve Ximo Puig at the head of the PSPV and seek a quick solution of consensus and unity that avoids a confrontational scenario have been altered. On December 17, the then general secretary of the second Spanish socialist federation announced that he was taking a step back. That same day, it was communicated the aim of holding, in the shortest possible time, an extraordinary congress, if possible at the end of February. These were the deadlines. And days later, a certain harmony was evident between Puig and the PSOE leadership so that the Minister of Science and Universities, the Valencian Diana Morant, was the person called to lead the PSPV. This was the methodology.
Neither deadlines nor methodology. Because on Friday the executive of the PSPV that was supposed to have been held yesterday was called off to convene the national committee that must set a date for the congress. The problem? That there is no consensus at the moment. Because in the PSPV the provincial barons of Valencia and Alicante, Carlos Fernández Bielsa and Alejandro Soler, also want to lead the party and do not quite accept the forms for “guardianship” that, as they express, Ferraz wants to impose on the Valencian organic process. Diana Morant will hardly agree to enter an organic battle if there is no prior agreement between the Valencian socialist families that prevents, for example, holding primaries. Would Diana Morant risk a competition in which she could be defeated, being, moreover, a minister in the Government of Pedro Sánchez? At the moment, this agreement is still far from being forged.
The initial rush is gone and some seem to want to buy time. First in terms. Last week Ximo Puig conveyed the discomfort of celebrating the extraordinary congress in a climate of Galician elections. But from the rival sectors to Puig it is assessed that it is an excuse, that what is intended is to gain time to try to convince Alejandro Soler and Carlos Fernández Bielsa not to present their candidacies. Some voices warn that the congress could be delayed for weeks, and even months; a sequence that is not very well known who benefits. The head of organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, announced yesterday that the congress of the Valencian federation will be held in the first quarter of this year. The Valencian socialist executive also emphasized this will. We will see.
The method is also in question. The rival families believe that an agreement between Pedro Sánchez and Ximo Puig to elect Diana Morant is invalid, at least if what they demand is not taken into account. “The numbers do not favor Morant”, point out these sources, convinced that in the event of a confrontation anything can happen. More in a federation in which there are wounds that have never fully healed.
The problem, sources from all the families acknowledge to this newspaper, is that if confrontation is chosen, the PSPV runs the risk of settling into a permanent crisis, as happened to it in 1995. And that would be the better news for the PP of Carlos Mazón, who governs with Vox the Generalitat Valenciana. On the other occasion, the crisis lasted 20 years, and was pickled with many political corpses. Could it be repeated again? If the deadlines and the method fail, everything is possible in Valencian socialism.
