Only two years later, the candidates to preside over the Community of Madrid met again in the only electoral debate in which the PP candidate, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, will be the favorite party in the polls to revalidate the mandate. A format that lasted for more than two hours, very different from that of 2021, but in which the left was fully used to show the seams of the regional government that Ayuso has presided over for four years. The regional president, however, chose not to respond to criticism from the opposition, sticking to launching her messages, using ETA and accusing the left of promoting “drugs” and “misery.” “I do not take the allusion, thank you,” Ayuso even stated during the debate when she was questioned by the Más Madrid candidate, Mónica García about the climate crisis.
It was precisely García who began the debate with five, remembering that these elections are from Madrid and are not an appointment to the general ones. A reminder that was in vain, because Ayuso, who was the next to speak, took just seconds to once again throw the already extinct terrorist group against the left: “On May 28, the ambitious model of the PP will vote or vote for ETA”, said the regional president as soon as she began. It would not be the only allusion. In the fourth block, dedicated to the Community’s relationship with other administrations, he also accused the Government of Pedro Sánchez and his “ETA partners” of hating Madrid, while in the second, dedicated to housing, he referred to the the law recently approved as the “Sánchez and Bildu” law.
For his part, the PSOE candidate, Juan Lobato, debuted in the format with a more institutional tone, advocated placing Madrid at the top, while the Podemos-IU-Alianza Verde candidate, Alejandra Jacinto, also a rookie in the debate, and together with Lobato, the most unknown, she chose to present herself as an expert on housing.
Jacinto looks for the clash with Ayuso
Jacinto was the one who sought the most clashes with the regional president during the debate. The Podemos-IU-AV candidate even wore a t-shirt with the face of Tomás Díaz Ayuso, the brother of the PP candidate, recalling the commission of 238,000 euros that Ayuso’s brother received for a contract from the regional government. “The bite of his brother translates into 10 years of work and effort,” the Más Madrid candidate also said on this issue.
The Podemos-IU candidate also recalled the deaths in residences due to the protocols that prevented the referral of the elderly to hospitals in the first wave of the pandemic. It was at that point that he wanted to give Ayuso the book ‘They will die in an unworthy way’ written by the former Minister of Citizens Alberto Reyero, in one of the most tense moments of the debate: “Do not invade my space”, the president replied, visibly nervous returning the copy to the lectern of Jacinto. Jacinto and Mónica García also recalled the deteriorated food that is served in some residences managed by the Community of Madrid.
In the first block dedicated to the economy and employment, taxes were the protagonists of the debate. While Ayuso defended his fiscal policy and the systematic reduction of taxes, assuring that they have benefited “those who have less”, the candidate of Podemos-IU-Alianza Verde, Alejandra Jacinto, confronted her with her own tax calculator: “How much For example, a person in the Community saves 1,500 euros a month, more or less 23,000 euros a year, and how much does a person who earns what you save, an income of around 100,000 euros”. Ayuso did not respond and Alejandra Jacinto continued. “I already told him. A person who earns 23,000 euros saves 167 euros and a person who earns like you, 1,343 euros ”, she reproached him. “That is his fiscal policy, a fiscal policy that only favors those who have the most in the Community.”
A premise that was repeated by the rest of the candidates on the left who also recalled the almost 1,000 million euros a year that the regional government forgives the richest or that the regional government has only approved budgets in four years, as the socialist candidate pointed out. . “It must be that the immense Community is rich because the vast majority never vote for the left, because they know that it only brings the same misery and the same poverty,” Ayuso limited himself to saying in the face of criticism.
Lobato pleads for “solvency”
“Are you willing to remain so calm knowing that Madrid is the 32nd region of the European Union?” asked the socialist leader Juan Lobato, who debuted in the format with a more institutional tone, advocating placing Madrid in the most high. Lobato opted during the debate to talk about “concrete proposals.” “There are already many opponents and agitators in the Community of Madrid,” said Lobato, trying to distance himself from the candidates of Más Madrid and Podemos in his strategy of confrontation with Ayuso.
“Winning the Popular Party and regenerating Madrid lies in sensitivity, with those 60 mayors that we have in the region, solvency and management experience,” Lobato defended. He also had reproaches against Ayuso, whom he accused of “governing with slogans” and of not having “friends”. “I promise to be a vindictive president, of course, but democracy and governing is much more, it is respect, it is education and it is reaching agreements,” he defended against polarization.
The leader of the Madrid socialists ended by promising to “listen, respect and manage seriously.” “Let’s not waste time. You can no longer wait for that resonance, that house that you have the right to have, that place for your son in Early Care, Vocational Training and University”.
Mónica García: “More Madrid has no ceiling”
Mónica García, as she did in the debate two years ago, once again placed health at the center of her policies, highlighting her experience as a public health doctor for 23 years. “I have seen things that I never thought I had seen,” said García. And she added: “I have seen the toilets insulted, emergencies closed and opened with totally broken equipment,” lamented the Más Madrid candidate. In this sense, García assured that she has “a plan to fix public health.”
“I want to repatriate the doctors that Ayuso has expelled fleeing from his own mistreatment,” he continued, to conclude that his model involves “fixing public health, guaranteeing a decent roof and green employment.” García also wanted to value the growth of his party in the community: “More Madrid has no roof,” he said. And he added: “We are the real alternative, the ones who can bring Ayuso to the opposition and make him want it.”
Faced with reproaches from the left, Ayuso has come to promise “a plant” on every balcony in Madrid as a strategy to combat the climate crisis. The regional president did not even have the support of the Vox candidate, Rocío Monasterio, who, although she tried to avoid direct confrontation with Ayuso, was disfigured by the break in relations “at the last minute” with Vox, which was, she said, the cause of the last budgets will not be agreed.
Vox’s most ultra speech
The far-right candidate recovered Vox’s most xenophobic discourse during the debate by linking unaccompanied immigrant minors, whom she calls “menas”, with episodes of violence, stabbings and robberies in the Community of Madrid. During the debate on Telemadrid, Monasterio assured that her party was wrong when on that poster they hung in the Madrid metro they argued that “each ore” costs “1,400 euros per month.” “It wasn’t true,” she pointed out, while she tore up the aforementioned poster.
“Each ore costs us 6,400 euros per month. And then they tell us that there is no aid for education, to treat doctors better, that we cannot make contracts for doctors”. At this point she was even made ugly by Ayuso who regretted the words of the one she had been her partner. “Relating immigration to crime is a big lie,” said the regional president.
Reproaches between the left
The only moment of coke among the lefts occurred when Alejandra Jacinto, candidate of Podemos-IU, reproached Más Madrid for not joining a “unity candidacy” in the region and running alone in the 28M elections. Jacinto thus brought out the division of space to the left of the PSOE. The Más Madrid candidate responded that it is her political force that has options to govern the community and lead the progressive bloc and, without wanting to go toe-to-toe with Podemos-IU, appealed to all leftist forces to agree to the day after the elections.
