With barely thirteen days to vote at the polls, the electoral campaign for the autonomous and municipal elections in Madrid always coincides with a date indicated on the calendar: May 15, the day of San Isidro Labrador. A day of festivity in the capital in which the candidates of all colors dress up as chulapas and chulapos and come to the Pradera to tour it and thus make themselves known in a more discerning environment. This year, the hopes of the left are placed in the Madrid City Council, where some polls say that there is a tie between the blocks. The progressive forces insist that there is a party and that each vote counts in order to regain Cibeles’ baton of command.
Health, housing, taxes or education: the recipes of the left in Madrid to overthrow Ayuso
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With this premise, the candidate of Más Madrid for the Consistory, Rita Maestre, has arrived this Monday in La Pradera to defend that the Mayor of the capital is “a very few thousand votes away”. “More Madrid has no roof and we went out this May 28 to win,” insisted Maestre, who arrived accompanied by the formation’s candidate for the Community of Madrid, Mónica García. García has reproached the PP candidate, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, for continuing to focus on the national debate and not on the problems of citizens.
“We are going to talk about Madrid, about healthcare in Madrid, about education in Madrid, about residences in Madrid, about housing in Madrid, because we are from here, from Madrid, and we want to do politics here in Madrid. The surveys tell us that this is the recipe that works, talking about Madrid and talking about the problems of the people of Madrid”, said García.
The PSOE candidate for Mayor of Madrid, Reyes Maroto, has appealed for her part to the “useful vote” to get the Socialists to lead Cibeles, highlighting the rise of her party in the polls and her government experience as former minister of core executive. Maroto was accompanied by the socialist candidate for the Madrid Assembly, Juan Lobato, the minister spokesperson, Isabel Rodriguez, and the Minister of Health, José Manuel Miñones.
For his part, Lobato has asked that the elections be “useful for the people” and that Madrid be talked about, something different from what the regional president and PP candidate, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, constantly does, whom he has invited to give a step forward to run in the general elections.
The candidate of Podemos-IU-Alianza Verde, Alejandra Jacinto, has also appealed to the narrow margin of votes to achieve a change in the governments of Madrid, who, unlike Maestre, does not see her formation winning the elections, but being decisive for the change both in the city of Madrid and in the Community: “We are clear that if we can-IU-AV we are strong on May 28 both in the city council and in the community, we will be able to stop the right”, said Jacinto upon his arrival at la Pradera together with Roberto Sotomayor, the candidate for mayor of the capital. Today is a day of celebration: it is the last San Isidro de Ayuso y Almeida”, Jacinto assured.
The CIS barometer made public last Thursday, with breakdowns by communities and provincial capitals, showed a scenario of a technical tie between blocks in the Madrid City Council, with the candidacy led by Roberto Sotomayor at around 5% – the entry barrier to achieve representation. In the most optimistic scenario, it granted four seats to Podemos-IU-AV that could facilitate the Government of Maestre. In the PP the fear that the mayor’s office of the most important city in the country is in danger for the right has already settled.
Faced with this scenario, both formations are throwing all the meat on the grill, an effort that has been joined by the Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, who has finally decided to get fully involved in the electoral campaign and make balances between all the forces to the left of the PSOE. For this reason, this Monday both the candidates of Más Madrid and those of Podemos-IU-AV have shared a moment in the Pradera with the vice president.
Díaz has briefly greeted the representatives of Podemos-IU-AV, with whom he has been photographed and walked. But the biggest gestures have been for the Más Madrid candidates with whom, in addition to touring the meadow, he has ended up eating and drinking in her booth. Previously, upon her arrival, the second vice president called for massive progressive mobilization for these elections, because she, she has said, the Community is one of the richest autonomies but also with the highest levels of inequality. In this sense, Díaz Madrid has vindicated the “open”, “diverse” and “popular” spirit of Madrid.
