The PSPV executive has just approved the calendar for the internal process that must be used to elect the person who will replace Ximo Puig at the head of the party. The National Committee will be held next Saturday, January 27, pre-candidacies must be presented between January 29 and 30, endorsements between January 31 and February 7 and the primary campaign will take place between January 8 and 23. of February. The first vote will be held on February 25, in the first round, and the second on March 3. Finally, the congress will be held on March 22, 23 and 24, after failures in Benicàssim.
At the moment, none of the three possible candidates to succeed Ximo Puig have taken the step and it is likely that they will wait for the deadlines established by the executive. Diana Morant, Minister of Science and Universities; Alejandro Soler, national deputy and provincial secretary of Alicante and Carlos Fernández Bielsa, mayor of Mislata and provincial secretary in Valencia, are the three possible candidates. If there is no agreement between some of the candidates, a process of internal confrontation will begin that will be seen in the primaries.
The preferred one by Ferraz and Ximo Puig is Diana Morant, but she cannot achieve her goal without the support of one of the other two candidates. The national leadership of the PSOE is working for Alejandro Soler to reach an agreement with the minister; possibility that is still far from being a reality. The leader of the PSPV in Alicante pointed out today that “I am available to be or not to be if we consider that there is a guarantee option for all the interests of the militancy.”
The meeting of the PSPV-PSOE executive was finally held this holiday Monday in Valencia (by the city’s patron saint) after two postponements, since it was initially called on January 8 but was postponed, and was rescheduled for on January 15, but the appointment was canceled again.
Behind these postponements, which were officially argued in the first case because it was necessary to “adjust the calendars” of the congress between the PSPV-PSOE and Ferraz and in the second “for agenda reasons”, have been the movements to seek a consensus that would avoid a confrontational conclave.
Since the general secretary of the Valencian socialists, Ximo Puig, announced on December 16 his intention to make way for new leadership after twelve years at the head of the second socialist federation of Spain by holding an extraordinary congress, there has been speculation with three possible candidates to succeed him.
