The coup de effect of Pedro Sánchez advancing the general elections to July 23 has altered the internal plans of all the parties and, in the case of the Valencian Community, has served to stop any threat of succession debate on the left, including that of the Valencian PSOE itself. The acting president of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, has announced this Tuesday that he will remain in the Valencian Parliament leading the opposition, an option that many people in the party did not even consider. In fact, there was speculation that the main territorial baron that the PSOE had would convene an extraordinary congress after the elections.
“I have accepted the mandate of the citizenry regarding my position and that of my party,” Puig explained in an appearance before the media after the meeting of the socialist executive that lasted three hours. “I am going to lead the alternative for the future for the Valencian Community”, he said, to justify that the Socialists cannot renounce the “consolidation” of the project deployed in the last eight years of management at the head of the Valencian Autonomous Government.
“It will be a constructive opposition”, has assured the leader of the Valencian socialists, but also “outright to stop the ravings that may occur”, he stressed, referring to the possible government pact between PP and Vox.
In this sense, he has slipped that the PSOE will not abstain to facilitate a solo government of the popular Carlos Mazón, which will force him to negotiate with Vox. In the words of Puig, “the public wants a serious and responsible opposition and they knew that this was about PP-Vox”. “Don't make them dizzy”, he has sentenced.
Puig has valued Sánchez's decision as “correct and deeply democratic”, although he has once again regretted an idea that the Socialists do not stop transmitting: the right wing managed to impose its framework to contaminate a campaign that, according to their opinion, has not turned on around Valencian themes. What is criticized, in short, is that Bildu or voting in an “anti-Sanchist” key was talked about. In this sense, he has censured the “thunderous noise” of the “Madrid media agenda”.
Even so, he has boasted of the electoral results of the PSOE in the Valencian Community, one of the territories where the Socialists have grown the most. In this case, the PSOE has remained as the second force with almost 692,000 votes and 31 deputies, although outside the Generalitat due to the collapse of its partners, and with nothing to say in the three provincial capitals.