The president of the Balearic Government, Francina Armengol, has announced this Saturday that she will be the candidate of the Balearic Socialists in the next general elections. Armengol will leave the Balearic presidency shortly after the victory of the PP in the last regional elections. Marga Prohens, the PP candidate, has prevailed in the main institutions of the Balearic Islands, including the Parliament, the four island councils and the Palma City Council.
Armengol has convened this Saturday a meeting of the Political Council of the socialists of the islands to analyze the result of the elections, in which the PSOE has lost a deputy despite the fact that it has remained in votes. The still Balearic president has announced to her militancy that she decides to take this step forward because of the importance that these general elections will have. “This is not the time to put yourself in profile,” she said.
For Armengo, calling the elections has been the right decision and he has indicated that it will be a moment for citizens to decide between the parties that want to advance “and those that want to go back 40 years.” “The PSOE is the only instrument that can stop a government of regression”, he has said before the militants.
The leadership of the socialists of the islands supports Armengol’s decision, although his departure opens up a series of unknowns in Balearic politics. From now on, it will be necessary to define who is in charge of the parliamentary group in the Islands, since the position of deputy in Congress is incompatible with that of deputy in an autonomous parliament. Nor is it known if she will be the one to reply to Prohens at the investiture session, which she wants to take place in the first week of July.
Armengol will continue as general secretary of the Socialists of the Balearic Islands but his march to Congress also suggests a progressive withdrawal from the first political line. This movement makes it clear that she will not be the one to top the regional lists in 2027, which is why the succession phase of who has been the undisputed leader of the Balearic Socialists has just opened, unofficially.
In any case, it is taken for granted that Francina Armengol will try to lead a peaceful succession from her position in the Congress of Deputies, but the strong leadership that she has given over all these years complicates the search for a clear replacement in the ranks of the PSOE Balearic. The president of the Socialists of Mallorca, Catalina Cladera, is the best placed for the succession, but she does not arouse the unanimous support of the militancy.
Armengol is one of the socialist baronesses who has always shown her support for Pedro Sánchez from the moment the Federal Committee led to the fall of the then leader of the PSOE. Her relations with the general secretary of the Socialists have been very good and she, Armengol, defines herself as a person faithful to Pedro Sánchez.
Francina Armengol has been president of the Balearic Government for the past eight years and has achieved several milestones for the left. She has been the first woman to preside over the Balearic Islands, she has been the first president of a left-wing government that has chained two consecutive terms and in the 2019 elections she managed to make the PSOE the list with the most votes in regional elections, something that had always been been patrimony of the PP.