The outgoing president of citizens, Ines Arrimadasbelieves that there are “many more options” to carry out the game with a new team than with her and for this reason, she has voluntarily taken a step back, as she has said in her farewell speech as party leader, in which she has thrown several taunts at Edmund Bal.
They have been indirect reproaches, without expressly mentioning at any time who his right-hand man was until a few weeks ago they abruptly broke up due to discrepancies over the leadership and what should have been the refounding of the party, causing a division in the party that will be difficult to overcome. , as recognized by some leaders.
This rupture became effective with the presentation of Bal to the primaries, which he lost against the official list that supports Arrimadas and that has placed the orange leader in the Balearic Islands in the new direction, Patricia Guaspas political spokesperson, and to the MEP, Adrian Vazquezin front of the General Secretariat.
In this last speech by Arrimadas as president before the sixth Assembly of Cs, she has also received with “honor” the order to continue as orange spokesperson in Congress, where she remains in the minority along with Guillermo Diaz because the rest of the group is with Bal, who will be informed this week if he remains as deputy spokesperson or is given another assignment.
One of the most sour messages that he has sent to Bal before the plenary, in which he was a member of the outgoing Executive, is that “you cannot fight cainism in Spain by killing Abel every week” and he has also warned of that nobody is more important than this party “and normally those who think they are most important are the most expendable“.
The already former orange leader has focused on the necessary unity, stressing that Ciudadanos depends on itself and they are not going to overcome the deep crisis they are going through with attacks: “We are not going to overcome it by fighting, whipping ourselves and blaming others, to others, to any excuse. Looking to the future and to the past”.
Arrimadas, whose final words have been applauded on their feet by all those present, included Ballalthough with a very serious gesture, he has assumed as his own the mistakes that may have been made during his time and the fact of not having been able to “correct” the course that leads them to irrelevance, insisting that he has fulfilled his promise to carry out Cs “to a radical change.”
With a speech without emotional licences, except when she has mentioned two of her closest collaborators, Marina Bravo and Daniel Pérez, Arrimadas has been convinced that there are “real options” to carry out the orange project despite the deep crisis they are experiencing and with the polls totally against (none give them even 3 percent in voting intention).
“This can be overcome,” he stressed after recalling that European liberal parties have gone through worse situations than that of Cs and have recovered: “It only depends on us because our worst enemy has been ourselves,” he said.
Arrimadas has once again claimed the political space of the center against the PP and PSOE, whom he sees as increasingly radical and whom he has accused of having given up fighting nationalism and populism, and has assured that these forces do not even want to orange proposals or their assets. “They only want our votes, they want to kill the option that the Spanish really have a liberal party,” he stressed.
Among his thanks, there was no lack of the one dedicated to the first president of Cs, Albert Riverawhich led the party to the top and also to a debacle in which it is still immersed.
Rivera, who is still a Cs militant, has not attended this conclave nor was he in the 2020 telematic Assembly in which Arrimadas assumed the orange helm.
