Pedro Sánchez has tried to ridicule the president of Castilla-La Mancha for his repeated request to bring forward the general elections to the regional and local elections, which will be held in May 2027, to avoid a national-level punishment of socialist mayors and territorial leaders like the one Emiliano García-Page believes occurred three years ago, when they lost six communities and important city councils. Other mid-level officials have publicly demanded the same and several maintain this position, but in private.
“Those voices, which are quite minority, overlook something important, which is that in the general elections [of 2023] the PSOE got a better result than in the municipal and regional ones,” argued the head of the Executive in an interview this Monday on the Ser network. “This calls into question some of these arguments used by these dear comrades, very dear, of course. Also always surprising, who innovate in their statements,” he added laughing without explicitly mentioning the baron of his party least aligned with the Ferraz leadership.
Furthermore, the secretary general of the socialists reiterated that he is willing to lead his party’s list in the 2027 elections “with the same enthusiasm as in 2019”: “The progressive political project is more necessary than ever to stop a reactionary wave that would only bring regression (…). Alternation is not bad in democracy, but today we do not have a proposal for alternation, not only because of Vox’s presence in the equation, no matter how much the PP tries to hide it, but also because this has caused the PP to lean towards destructive opposition as its raison d’être,” he emphasized.
What Sánchez has not clarified is whether he will call the elections in the first quarter of the year or wait until summer, after in the last PSOE Federal Committee he committed to his own not to coincide the general elections with the regional and municipal ones on a super Sunday: “There may be a technical advance or not. My intention is to complete the legislature and legislatures last four years. If you ask me if they will be in July, on such a day, we enter a territory where there may be technical advances or not.”
The head of the Executive has also defended again the presumption of innocence of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, assuring he has “guaranteed” that “he will demonstrate in court the legality of the jewels” found in a safe in his office and which are the subject of a judicial investigation. Regarding the alleged receipt of commissions by the former socialist president for mediating in the rescue of Plus Ultra, he reiterated that the operation file “is spotless” and framed within normality “the mediation, influence, and lobby actions” that former leaders may carry out given their income from verbal reports to the intermediary company of the Venezuelan capital airline.
Ayuso’s “penthouse”
Regarding the controversial acquisition by the Community of Madrid of “a large apartment of 400 meters and 200 of terrace” in the Chamberí district for more than six million euros, Sánchez pointed out that “what it seems is that this lady [referring to Isabel Díaz Ayuso] wanted to buy herself a penthouse with the money of the Madrilenians to live in it and she got caught.” “The PP has a serious problem of transparency, accountability, and demand for responsibility,” he stressed.
According to the socialist leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has to clarify “what he knew since April” about this purchase, when the regional president “says she knew nothing,” and he implicitly referred to the lawfare that on other occasions he has verbalized that his party and environment suffer: “It seems to me that this also has a lot to do with the feeling of impunity with which some right-wing leaders act. And they have reasons to feel immune, because judges do not pursue them.”
