Ximo Puig’s PSPV and Carlos Mazón’s PP are defining two clearly differentiated strategies to face the 28M electoral battle. The Valencian socialists fear that some regional and municipal elections in a national plebiscite key, that is, with Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo as protagonists, could reduce the prominence of Ximo Puig and his government’s management of the Botànic, which also includes Compromís and Unides Podem. The Valencian president said it yesterday when in an interview in À Punt he lamented that there are people “who think that the general elections are the only important ones.”
It is not the case of the PP. Carlos Mazón and the candidate for mayor of Valencia, María José Català, have made it clear that a fight is going well for them where regional and local affairs remain second level, and that national tension is encouraged to mobilize their voters. In the PP the facts and messages are added to nationalize the campaign. It was possible to confirm this Sunday in the act in which the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, participated.
Not only did the Madrid leader use a large part of her speech to charge against Sánchez, so did María José Catalá, who warned that “the only valid vote for change to throw Joan Ribó, Ximo Puig and Sánchez out of the Government is the vote for the PP ”, because “that is the objective”. In fact, part of her intervention was used by Catalá to criticize Vox for the failed motion of no confidence against Sánchez: “it was a breath of fresh air when he needed it most,” she said. And she added that the Prime Minister “has to leave Moncloa now.”
The PP smiles more at the private polls that are published practically every week than the internal polls that the Valencian parties handle in the face of the autonomous ones. A tailwind that the popular want to take advantage of to change the political cycle in the Valencian Community that began in 2015. Faced with a candidate who still does not have the notoriety of Puig (with barely two months left for the polling stations to open), The main strength of the Valencian PP is its acronym and the national context that places it as a possible and feasible alternative to the coalition government.
In Genoa they know it, as they are also aware of the blow that would mean turning around the autonomy with more political weight than those that are at stake the next 28M and, moreover, chaired by a socialist. Hence, the landing of party leaders in recent days before, after and during the Fallas.
On the other hand, with a legion of mayors and with a management, in his opinion, more than correct, the PSPV wants to be judged for these eight years of government of the Botànic. Yesterday, Ximo Puig, also stressed that the Valencian Community “does not have to be a trophy for anyone or a step to go to another place” since “what the Valencians are at stake is important enough in itself to think in a state key ”.
This desire of the Socialists to make the campaign as Valencian as possible is consistent with the more discreet presence of national leaders in Valencian lands. In the Palau de la Generalitat they are convinced that the image of the Valencian president is more valued than that of the Spanish president, so they understand that this lower presence does not detract from them electorally. However, in Ferraz street they also know that a lot is at stake in the Valencian Community and, therefore, they have not hesitated in their municipal convention in the city of Valencia for this month of April.
The 2023 PSPV strategy is different from that of 2019. In that year, Ximo Puig advanced the regional ones to join them with the general ones and separate them from the municipal ones. Now, however, they also want to take advantage of the pull of the mayors in the autonomic ones. The result, shortly.
