Without a government pact in Ceuta between PP and PSOE: the city loses out
If there is a city in Spain that is vulnerable and economically suffocated, that is Ceuta. It was demonstrated once again in May 2021, when more than 10,000 immigrants, a fifth of them minors, entered the city. It is demonstrated daily when Rabat does not fulfill its commitment, agreed on April 7, 2022, to allow the opening of a commercial customs office with Morocco and does not even apply the so-called traveler regime at the land border.. That is why Ceuta, and also Melilla, is mentioned in the National Security Strategy and, in addition, a Comprehensive Security Plan is being prepared for that territory of 85,000 inhabitants and 18.5 square kilometers.
If there is a city in Spain whose mayor of the Popular Party has been loyal to the coalition government, that is Ceuta. Juan Jesús Vivas, president of the city since 2001, demonstrated it in those days of May 2021, coinciding with the migratory invasion, and on many other occasions. He has effusively thanked all the visits of President Pedro Sánchez to the city. He praised the “gradual and orderly opening process” of that customs office with Morocco that still does not exist and probably will never exist..
If there is a city in Spain where a political party with citizen support threatens coexistence, that is Ceuta. Vox, now the third political force in Ceuta, is much more radical there than its national leadership. Proof of this are the attacks carried out by their local leaders against Muslim deputies in the Assembly of Ceuta, a city in which more than 40% of the population practices that religion.. Nothing similar happens with Vox in Melilla. They accused these deputies of being “undercover Moroccans”, of supporting the jihad and urged them to stand for election in Morocco and not in Spain.
Proof of this are also those WhatsApp messages exchanged between his leadership and that came to light in January 2020, causing the resignation of two of the Vox deputies.. “The third world war will have to start one day and it will be against Islam,” Francisco Ruiz, a police officer on leave and deputy for Vox, wrote, for example, at the time.. Two years later, after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Juan Sergio Redondo, the local leader of Vox, posted on Twitter that Vladimir Putin “only asks for respect for his borders”, but that neither “the US, nor the EU, nor the NATO are doing it”. “It is enough to provoke and then appear as victims,” he concluded. The party leadership urged him to delete his tweets.
If there is a city in Spain where the PP is willing to govern with the PSOE, and not with Vox, that is Ceuta. In the 2019 municipal elections, the Vivas PP no longer obtained an absolute majority and began to collaborate with Vox, which was then the second political force, without allowing it to enter the local Executive. Vivas came out scalded by that experience and, in November 2020, agreed with the PSOE to continue governing the entire legislature with its support.. After the May elections, the PP was victorious, but again without an absolute majority.
Vivas wanted to repeat the same government formula, but he was also willing to allow the PSOE —which facilitated his investiture as president— into his Executive. He explained his determination to expand his parliamentary base because it is necessary to “guarantee stability and have the capacity of government to face the challenges” that the city has.
If there is a city in Spain where the PSOE wanted to govern in coalition with the PP, that is Ceuta. Juan Gutiérrez, general secretary of the Ceuta socialists, declared on local television on July 28 that in the legislature that was starting his party did not want to continue giving “specific support” to Vivas “as until now” but to integrate “a coalition government”.. He wanted to receive his reward for that continued support.. With this purpose, Gutiérrez even began to negotiate with the PP. He aspired to obtain three ministries (Neighborhoods, Health and Tourism) and the direction of four municipal companies. Six days after Gutiérrez's statement, the PSOE of Ceuta, however, issued a statement in which it assured that “currently there is not and cannot be a government pact with the PP of Feijóo”. He did not give any further explanations..
“This is what Ceuta [from Pedro Sánchez] receives as thanks” for his loyalty, Vivas commented upon learning of the change of heart of the Ceuta socialists. He drew the conclusion that “the national leadership of the PSOE vetoed any agreement without presenting any argument”. The left-wing Madrid newspapers made the same interpretation of the PSOE's refusal to form a coalition with the PP: the order came from the party's general secretariat on Calle Ferraz in Madrid. And Ceuta lost.