After the Ciudadanos (Cs) party fired its current leader in Catalonia, Lorena Roldán, this week, replacing her with senior Cs parliamentarian Carlos Carrizosa as candidate for the Catalan presidency, a senator from the party, Francesc Xavier Alegre, elected to represent Catalonia, has now walked away as well, saying he is "shattered" by the course the group is taking. According to Alegre himself, what destroyed his confidence was the party's disastrous electoral defeat of last autumn, and then the reorganization approved in the party last assembly, which ratified Inés Arrimadas as the leader of Cs.
After eight years of membership, Alegre is tearing up his party card, although he has announced that he will maintain his position as a municipal councillor in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, near Barcelona. It remains to be seen if he will find a formula to hold on to his seat in the Spanish upper house. Alegre was one of the first senators to represent Ciudadanos, and has had a special role in the chamber's committees.
The reformulation of Cs
Ciudadanos's members this year chose Inés Arrimadas as president of the party at Spanish level. With a total of 9,481 votes, and only 2,752 being registered for her rival Francisco Igea, she won with 77 per cent of support. The differences between Arrimadas and Igea were obvious from the beginning, and the amount of the party's internal dirty laundry that was washed in public was unusual. Igea criticized his party from a centre-right perspective, for not reaching an accord with Pedro Sánchez after last year's first Spanish elections in April - when they finished strongly - and he also criticized the Cs electoral coalitions with the right-wing Popular Party (PP) in Madrid, Murcia and Andalusia.
Cs leader Inés Arrimadas. / EFE
Later, the party's general assembly elected its new General Council, giving the thumbs-up to the 125 candidates who were part of the list of party leader Arrimadas, and whose motto was "With Inés, united and forward."
Lorena Roldán, replaced
Lorena Roldán, Cs deputy for Tarragona, had been chosen via primaries in July last year to be the Ciudadanos candidate for the presidency of Catalonia, with a whopping 87 per cent of support. However, voter preferences outside the party were a different matter, and after low polling as preferred leader, Cs ended up replacing her with Carrizosa as head of the list.
In a press release, the party has announced its intention to "intensify talks and contacts with other constitutionalist formations" to close a joint candidacy which would guarantee that that the alliance between separatists can be beaten at the polls." Cs have, in fact, already proposed to the PP and the Catalan Socialists (PSC) to mount a joint candidature in the next Catalan elections, yet to be announced, under a slogan of "beating Puigdemont".
Carrizosa's proposal as a candidate also relates to this proposal, and is based on the party's internal agreement that its candidate holds public office exclusively in Catalonia, and thus "would be able to be identified as just a party candidate and would reduce any sense of partisanship, thus facilitating the future constitutionalist coalition " The party stressed in its press statement that "given the gravity of the situation, this union of constitutionalists is more necessary than ever."
Main image: Ciudadanos senator, Francesc Xavier Alegre, who is leaving the party. / EP