The national spokesperson for Ciudadanos Patricia Guasp has presented this Saturday in society the candidates who will run in 12 communities in the regional elections on May 28, and also the candidates for mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, and of Barcelona, Anna Grau. The event, held at the Fernando de los Ríos Cultural Center in the capital, has been marked by the absence of the former leader of the formation and spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies, Inés Arrimadas, who already announced that she was not going to be able to be for “personal reasons”, and that of Edmundo Bal, faced since the celebration of the primaries. The deputies of the parliamentary group, the majority of whom are related to Bal, have not attended the presentation either.
The most applauded of all has been Begoña Villacís who in her turn to speak has ‘scolded’ her colleagues for having made her emotional. “Bastards, that is not done”, she has released her. The deputy mayor of Madrid, who has recently been involved in controversy over her flirtations with the PP and her doubts about her future, has made it clear to her people this Saturday, after being proclaimed a candidate for mayor of Madrid, that she “feels deeply proud of being a member of Ciudadanos” because she believes that “it is the best political project in recent Spain”, the only project -she added- that made her “leave her comfortable private life and start another very crazy and exciting life”.
Villacís wanted to claim himself as one of the leaders of the party and has assured his colleagues that they cannot “give up, warning, in clear reference to the PP: “Let’s not buy the frame from them. We know that we bother and that they would love to give us up for missing “, he cried. “If we leave, there are only people like them left; They are playing with fire, dividing us and confronting us and we cannot allow that”, he continued, provoking more applause among those attending the event. As he has said, “the only antidote” to end the scourge of corruption is Ciudadanos. “That’s why they don’t want us here because they want more freedom to do what they want, they only care about their own while what we care about are our neighbors and local politics,” he added.
Villacís: “On May 28 we will have a party”
“Those of us in Madrid know what we have worked for and we have really done it, so go with your head held high”, he harangued the other candidates “I want you to go to the campaign with pride, with conviction and with principles” , Villacís has asked, promising that she “is going to leave her foot”. “I have the perfect combination – he has revealed – that of the illusion of 2015 and the bad mood that they have created in me in these last weeks”, he said, in a veiled reference to the days in which he has been at the center of the controversy before his meetings with leaders of the PP, a party he has not cited. She, too, has not once named Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
The deputy mayor, very excited, has predicted that next May 28, election day, “we are going to have a party that not even they are going to believe” and she has promised to pay for “that round”.
During the event, Anna Grau also spoke as a candidate for mayor of Barcelona, who revealed that “the happiest day of her life” was knowing that she had won the primaries. “We are in a scary life”, Grau has sentenced, assuring that the Ciudadanos project “is not a dream or a mirage, it is the greatest thing that has happened to this country from north to south”. For the journalist and candidate for mayor of Barcelona, if her party disappeared, “millions of citizens would be orphaned.” “Nothing is perfect but everything is possible if we stick together”, he added, asking at the same time “that no one be discouraged, that no one leave”, quoting at that moment “Inés and Edmundo, we need you all, he assured . “We are essential and we are going to be decisive” predicted Grau, very animated.
The national spokesperson, Patricia Guasp, who closed the event with her speech, also stated that “the new Ciudadanos is more alive than ever”, while praising the candidates: “You are brave for taking a step forward”, ” you are the best option”, he told them, alerting them that he has to fight in these elections because, in his opinion, “the freedom to live is at stake and the middle class that supports the welfare state is at stake”, and they must also fight against “the two enemies that Spain has, populism and ambition.”
The candidates that have been ratified this Saturday are: Manuel Iñarra, for the Principality of Asturias; Isabel Bello, to the insular Government of the Canary Islands: Félix Álvarez, to the Government of Cantabria; Carmen Picazo, to the Government of Castilla La Mancha; Fernando Baselga, for the Junta de Extremadura; Aruca Gómez, for the Community of Madrdi; María José Rose, to the Government of the Region of Murcia; Carlos Pérez-Nievas, to the Government of the Foral Community of Navarra; Ángel Gabriel Iñiguez, for the government of La Rioja; Mamen Peris, the Generalitat Valenciana and Patricia Guasp herself, who is running for the Government of the Balearic Islands.