After the poor result of 2019, the PPdeG has May 28, 2023 marked in red on its calendar, the date of the next municipal elections. This Wednesday the popular ones, with their general secretary, Paula Prado, at the head, met in Santiago, at the regional headquarters, the cities committee, led by José Manuel Rey Varela. Prado conveyed to the media that they were “advancing safely”, having forged a “common project” and “working” to form teams. Regarding what she defined as the “last” step, the designation of candidates, the “specific names”, which are the ones that arouse the greatest informative interest, the number two of the PPdeG assured that “soon” the four great unknowns will be revealed: who they will aspire to the mayorships of La Coruña, Ferrol, Orense and Lugo.
Since the other three already have, he recalled, their “confirmed leaders”: Marta Fernández-Tapias in Vigo, Rafa Domínguez in Pontevedra and Borja Verea in Santiago.
As expected, Prado did not give names, nor clues. Not even when he was asked about the suitability of taking advantage of the projection of the spokespersons in the cities, some present in the city committee, such as Ramón Carballo from Lugo or Flora Moure from Ourense, in addition to King Varela himself. «The luck we have in the PPdeG is that we have a lot of youth and a lot of equipment. In some places it is difficult to designate a candidate when we have several who could be good candidates”, Prado raffled. The general secretary stuck to the intention of her leader, Alfonso Rueda, to announce the seven candidates in the cities “before the summer”, understanding this horizon as prior to the August vacations; and he stressed that the important thing now is the project and the teams, that the names will come “later”. But speculation is unavoidable. In recent weeks, both Rueda and Prado have been probed insistently.
Beyond the fact that the cards continue, from the outside, face down, as for the four names that remain unclosed, it is not a homogeneous group at all. In the case of Ferrol, it is obvious that the party wants Rey Varela to step forward. The general secretary said it last weekend in these pages: «I would like him to be the mayor (…). He would be the best mayor ». Clearer, impossible. Prado has been less emphatic with the remaining shortlist. The same day her interview was published on ABC, she described Manuel Cabezas, a possible candidate in Orense, as a “reference” on Radio Galega; Elena Candia, who is speculated as an option in Lugo, with a “very powerful name”; and Miguel Lorenzo, who sounds for La Coruña, with a “name with political and professional weight”. “Magnificent profiles,” she cut short. This Wednesday she also had a morning that she tested her ‘waist’. “No matter how many candidates there are, if there is not a good team in each city, and if there is not a common project, it will be difficult for us to successfully face” the polls, she struggled to quell the desire to publish some new name.
“As in handball, we will have a luxury starting seven”, Prado threw out those sports metaphors that Alberto Núñez Feijóo likes so much. “I am not going to be the coach of that team, but it is important that, together, we make the most appropriate tactics,” he stressed. And he provided a headline: “The seven current mayors have, on May 28, 2023, an expiration date.”
This includes Gonzalo Pérez Jácome, who is still supported by the popular in Orense. On the same morning the provincial baron pronounced. Manuel Baltar appealed to achieve absolute majorities so as not to repeat “governments of convenience” that even “exploded.” An obvious allusion to the convulsive alliance with Jácome. A toad that, in the next legislature, nobody wants to swallow again.
