Ciudadanos celebrates this weekend the primaries to elect their candidates for the mayoralty of Madrid and Barcelona and for the presidency of the twelve autonomous communities that renew their parliaments. This Sunday at 10:00 p.m. the deadline for submitting applications ends, but so far there are not many known applicants.
Although Anna Grau announced her desire to be the Liberal mayor of the Catalan capital weeks ago in an interview in La Vanguardia, Begoña Villacís delayed her decision until last Wednesday, after a rough approach to the PP.
None seems to have a rival, although in the case of the Spanish capital some militants have tried to get Santiago Saura, the Madrid councilor who accompanied Edmundo Bal in his challenge to Inés Arrimadas, to present an alternative candidacy to that of the deputy mayor, highly questioned internally for his flirtations with the popular leadership.
Saura was Villacís number two on the 2019 municipal list and is now the head of the delegated area of ??internationalization and cooperation of the Madrid City Council. In the primaries for the leadership of Ciudadanos, he presented himself as a candidate for general secretary, a position for which he garnered almost 40% of the votes and which was finally filled by Adrián Vázquez.
There is more uncertainty around who will be the candidate in the Community of Madrid, where it is assumed that Bal will not repeat, and no one has applied for the moment. Ciudadanos lost their representation in the Assembly in the early elections of 2021, when the president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, broke the coalition government and called the polls.
And in other autonomies the situation is even more complex. In Aragon, primaries have not been called because the executive committee has no guarantees of its proper functioning given the possibility that the six councilors of Zaragoza, facing the regional coordinator, Daniel Pérez Calvo, hide the intention of going over to the PP after distorting them.
In the Valencian Community, after the signing of Ruth Merino by the PP of Carlos Mazón, who has the best chance is Mamen Peris, who replaced Merino as spokesperson in the Valencian Parliament and is part of the renewed permanent executive of Ciudadanos. Once the candidatures have been formalized this weekend, which must have the pertinent guarantees, the votes will be held on February 15 and 16.