Ferraz activates the primaries in Galicia and the Basque Country for fear of an electoral advance
The electoral wheel does not stop and the journey towards the Galician and Basque elections that should be held in the summer of 2024 is already beginning.. The PSOE has given the starting signal by activating the primaries in both territories at the meeting of the Federal Executive that was held this Monday at the Ferraz headquarters at the request of the regional federations. In both Galicia and Euskadi, the two most obvious candidates have already run, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro and Eneko Andueza, but any activist who collects the necessary number of endorsements can appear and force a vote.. In fact, Gonzalo Caballero, nephew of the Vigo mayor Abel Caballero, has run against the apparatus.
The federal spokesperson for the PSOE, Pilar Alegría, has announced the procedure when there are 9 months left until the established date of the elections, since the last ones were held in July 2020, the year of the covid pandemic.. The logical thing is that they move forward several months to avoid the summer dates, but there is still no clear calendar, since it depends on the Galician and Basque presidents.. The popular Alfonso Rueda and the jeltzale Iñigo Urkullu have the power to set the electoral date whenever they wish. The scheduled date for the primaries will be next October 29.
The socialists have very different situations in the two territories. In Galicia, the PSOEdeG has been in opposition for years since Alberto Núñez Feijóo began to chain absolute majorities, although they maintain part of the local power with leading city councils in La Coruña and Vigo. José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, who was a Government delegate and is now a deputy in Congress, has already announced his intention to run in the primaries..
His career was marked by almost a dozen accusations in a case of political corruption from which he ended up emerging unscathed and has now been rehabilitated for public life by Pedro Sánchez, who has even included him in the negotiating team for his investiture process.. The previous candidate and former regional leader of the party, Gonzalo Caballero, has also expressed his intentions to run and compete with Sánchez's favorite.
In Euskadi, the PSE is part of the Urkullu Government, with Idoia Mendia as vice president. But the candidate will not be the former general secretary of the party, but her successor, Eneko Andueza. The regional president has already made clear his intentions to attend the process, which begins with the collection of guarantees scheduled between October 11 and 18. The reforms in the statutes implemented by Sánchez reduced the number of signatures necessary to 2% of militancy, which facilitates internal competition. Andueza, a native of Eibar but resident in Portugalete, has a different tone than her predecessor and allows herself to criticize the head of the Executive in which her own party is part.
Meeting with unions
The general secretaries of the two main unions, CCOO and UGT, have also been in Ferraz, after Sánchez has summoned them to a consultation prior to the meetings he will hold with the parliamentary groups for the investiture.. Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez have conveyed the need for the next legislature to focus on the social agenda. Among the specific demands that have been conveyed to him include a reduction in the maximum general working day, which is currently 40 hours a week, the tightening of unfair dismissals and an increase in taxes.. Both have celebrated Sánchez's “predisposition” to address these issues.
The amnesty has concentrated journalists' doubts around this meeting. Union leaders have avoided giving a firm response on the amnesty, but they have opened the door for the future government to continue taking steps to normalize the political situation in Catalonia.. Sordo has called for abandoning “the criminal and punitive perspective” to move towards reconciliation. “Politics needs to play a role,” he claimed..
Álvarez has asked to continue with “the path that began with the pardons” and that continued with “the change of the penal code.”. They thus open the door to defend the amnesty law demanded by the Catalan independence parties to favor Sánchez's investiture.. In any case, they have regretted that the political agenda is focusing on the Catalan issue, because “social policy should have a weight in this debate”.
The leader of the UGT has demanded that Junts sit down to negotiate the investiture, not only in terms of the amnesty, but also of social policy.. “It would be welcome to be able to establish a dialogue with Junts, although it is not easy,” he noted.. In any case, they reserve the final opinion on the amnesty to know the specific content of the law.