The PSPV leadership does not want internal battles to destabilize a party that has managed to consolidate itself as the clearest alternative to the current PP and Vox government. They know that calls for unity and cohesion to avoid repeating past mistakes will be of no use if there are finally primaries and more than one candidate for the General Secretariat. Any vote – and Ximo Puig himself already experienced it as president of the Generalitat when those close to José Luis Ábalos presented him with a rival – generates tension and divides the militancy.
It does not seem to be the scenario that Ferraz wants to start a year with three elections in sight – Galician, Basque and European – that should serve as a thermometer to see how citizens have accepted the pacts that have allowed Pedro Sánchez to continue in La Moncloa. An organic guerrilla war is the best context to launch an entire Government minister – the person responsible for Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant -. Primaries always have a risk factor, although as a PSPV deputy comments, “whoever wins them comes out very strengthened.”
In this context, but without wanting to get too wet, the still general secretary of the PSPV, Ximo Puig, appealed yesterday to the need for a congress that does not repeat the mistakes of 1995, when the PSPV bled in internal battles after losing the Generalitat and started a decline that lasted 20 years. Asked if he prefers a single candidacy or holding the primaries, the leader of the Valencian socialists defended that “the fundamental thing is that the process is as cohesive as possible and, above all, that the social democratic and Valencian project is strengthened and invigorated.” “.
He believes that the bases are after reaching 32% of the vote and that, now, sources from his environment add, the militancy must ask itself who is the best option to lead the party, thinking now of 2027.
The PSPV leadership believes that an agreement can be reached between the different candidates because “there is room for everyone” in the pending renewal of the party. However, as the same sources admit, this desire does not depend on the current leaders because, no matter how much they can also put pressure from Ferraz, the final decision made on their future by the provincial secretaries of Valencia, Carlos Fernández Bielsa, and Alicante, Alejandro Soler, it depends on them. Of course, Puig’s entourage warns, “in the game they already know that facing Pedro Sánchez has consequences.”
At the moment, no one is taking the step, not even the minister and great favorite has given any clues. Puig yesterday avoided commenting on specific names (and it is not expected to be done before the conclave is called). She also did not present her preferences yesterday to the general secretary of the PSPV regarding the calendar. He only admitted that the different options are being reviewed, since the call for the Galician elections on February 18 could alter the initial plans to hold the conclave at the end of that month.
The former president of the Generalitat acknowledged that the date could be delayed and that the executive next Monday that the National Committee that will set the definitive deadlines for the extraordinary congress must convene must study the calendar. “It is an issue that we are going to analyze so that the necessary internal renewal does not conflict with the expectations of national policy,” he said. Despite admitting that they are “two slightly different hemispheres” (the Xunta elections and the changes in the PSPV), Puig understands that they are issues to take into account.
Thus, the Valencian socialists begin the year with more doubts than certainties, but convinced that, if they do things well, they will have an electoral opportunity in 2027.