MADRID – A regional initiative has also disrupted politics in Spain nationally. The passed vote of no confidence by PSOE and Cs against the PP in Murcia may have national consequences with a fall of the PP government in Madrid or early elections there.
In response to the removal of the PP in Murcia on Tuesday morning, regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso chose to send her government home on Wednesday afternoon and call early elections for May 4. As such, she wants to prevent a motion of no confidence against her own government, according to El País. ‘The time has come to think big’. I made this decision against my will because I cannot allow Madrid to lose its freedom’.
After the brief press conference in which she made the above mentioned statements, Ayuso fired her Deputy Prime Minister Ignacio Aguado of Ciudadanos, the junior in Madrid’s coalition government. Regional ministers of C’s also had to go home. Aguado said he felt “betrayed” by Ayuso and demanded a reconsideration. This is a personal feud. It’s absolutely irresponsible. There is no greater betrayal than breaking your word ‘.
To prevent early elections, PSOE and Más Madrid have quickly submitted two no-confidence motions against Díaz. The reasoning was that they had to be passed before the early elections were to be published in the regional gazette on Thursday. Only then would they be official. At 4:30 PM it turned out that the motion against Ayuso had been passed.
Vox on the rise
Early elections could shake up the political landscape in Madrid considerably. According to the polls, Vox is on the rise. Ciudadanos may get its first prime minister in Murcia, but at the same time run the risk of losing the powerful Madrid region. Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, on Twitter demanded that the PP prime ministers in Madrid, Andalusia and Castilla y León quickly declare early elections in their regions. This is to avoid possible motions of no confidence in those communities. “We are demanding elections in regions at risk of being attacked by socialism,” said the Vox leader.
More motions of no confidence
In Castilla y León, the PSOE filed a vote of no confidence against the coalition government of the PP and Ciudadanos. However, Ciudadanos has already indicated that it does not support the motion. That means that many eyes are now focused on the region of Andalusia, where a coalition of PP and Ciudadanos is also in power. However, there were reports from Seville that a vote of no confidence has little chance.
Criticism
El Mundo is clearly against the process of institutional destabilization now underway. Spain has buried nearly 100,000 victims of the pandemic, already four million unemployed and another million people sitting at home on the basis of an ERTE scheme. According to all experts, Spain is – writes El Mundo – on the brink of economic collapse due to, among other things, bad management. This “reveals the populist drive of a Sánchez [Spanish Prime Minister – PSOE] who is more concerned with preventing the alternative than governing. And in that attempt he lets others fall ‘.
