On May 2, the PSOE will celebrate 144 years of history, an anniversary that no other party equals and of great symbolism at the gates of the 28-M elections. “Militancy is loyalty. Now that we see parties that appear and disappear, Rodolfo Ares never forgot, beyond the specific differences, belonging to a political project like Basque and Spanish socialism. That is why it is important to keep our roots very firm”, Pedro Sánchez highlighted at the tribute in Bilbao to the former Minister of the Interior of the Basque Country. “Militancy is camaraderie, beyond specific differences, and Rodolfo died with his boots on, leaving a fond memory and being a PSOE militant”, Sánchez appreciated at the event An essential socialist, in which Patxi López, former lehendakari and current spokesperson in Congress, and the general secretary of the PSE-EE, Eneko Andueza, participated.
500 kilometers to the southeast, in Valencia, the Socialists have also appealed to their origins in the Municipal Convention, their main conclave since the 40th Federal Congress. “The strength of this party is its deep roots. Political organizations are nothing more than a summer night when they are not rooted in the territory. If anyone had doubts, we have seen it this last legislature in organizations of which, once the wave passed, there is no trace left ”, claimed María Jesús Montero, deputy secretary general of the PSOE and Minister of Finance, in an implicit reference to the decline of the parties of the new politics, during the opening of the convention that the Socialists will hold until tomorrow. The election of Valencia is not at all accidental: the main battle that the PSOE and the PP will fight in the regional and municipal elections will be in the Valencian Community, which has been chaired by Ximo Puig since 2015. The Socialists govern in 10 of the 12 communities that will go to the polls on May 28, but Ferraz and La Moncloa have wanted to dedicate this weekend almost exclusively to their municipal power; For this reason, all the barons, except the host, have stayed in their territories, dedicating precious time to multiplying themselves in campaign acts to revalidate their mandates.
“We have always prioritized the interests of the citizenry, we have had loyalty, and that loyalty is what has given us 143 years of history,” José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero remarked in turn at a political conference that will be attended by 2,000 officials. of the PSOE. The former President of the Government has appealed to those origins and to the role that the party has played in the modernization of Spain —it is the formation that has governed the longest since the restoration of democracy and the one that has won the most general, regional and municipal elections since the end of the dictatorship—on the opening day of the municipalist political conference. “Loyalty to a project with as much tradition as that of the PSOE comes by itself. It welcomes you, encourages you to be. Does anyone know of a political organization with the same capacity for so many changes, for so many reforms, for fighting for democracy for so long? Only the PSOE can say that, which has been in every conquest and social advance”, he highlighted in the City of Arts and Sciences.
The PSOE faces the municipal elections at the head of more than 2,800 city councils of the 8,131 Spanish municipalities. The local elections, which unlike the regional ones are held throughout the country, will give an x-ray of the strength of the big parties — in the absence of post-election pacts — six months before the general ones. The Socialists led the PP in the 2019 municipal elections by more than one and a half million votes and 2,000 councilors. In Ferraz they recognize that this distance will not be repeated, but they see themselves in a position to once again be the first force after the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has lowered expectations for May 28. With 2,500 mayors and close to 22,500 councillors, the PSOE governs in 22 provincial capitals and in 23 of the 41 provincial councils, in addition to three councils and two island councils. “The PSOE faces these municipal elections from a great strength that gives us the legitimacy to govern for 20.6 million Spaniards and in 57% of the municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. We won the last municipal elections and we are convinced that our program for May 28 will once again convince the majority”, emphasized Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, head of municipal policy for the federal administration and first vice president of Congress.
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“This party is rooted in every square, in every town, where politics is put on a face. We are a party that has been constantly updating itself to the rhythm of society”, Montero has had an impact. The number two of the PSOE has reproached the vote against the PP to the increase in the minimum wage, the labor reform and other social measures during the pandemic and since the start of the war in Ukraine: “They have been against it from the first minute, the PP He thinks that the worse things were for the country, the better his electoral interests would be.” Feijóo’s latest rejection has been taken by the housing law.
“The only thing they know how to do is criticize… What an empty right, with so little capacity for effort and to lend a hand! The housing law has just been approved and they are already saying that they are going to raise prices, don’t be in such a hurry, what anxiety! They are the prophets of disaster”, Zapatero has abounded, who has also defended the “courage and wisdom” of granting pardons to the separatists, a decision that contributed to “pacify” Catalonia. “The PP has announced that it is going to appeal the housing law to the Constitutional Court… What this law is going to do is transform a huge problem, especially for young people, and transform it into a right and not a problem”, Sánchez has concluded in Bilbao in the “tribute of life” that the PSOE has dedicated to Rodolfo Ares while the campaign of the municipal elections began in Valencia. The President of the Government and Ximo Puig will close the local Convention this Sunday.
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