Bal urges Arrimadas to "step aside" and accuses her of "putting people ahead" to "continue to command behind"

He defends that his candidacy is "the hope" to "get out of the pothole" and denounces "pressure" on militants from "the official apparatus"

VALENCIA, 7 Jan. (EUROPE PRESS) -

The deputy spokesman for Ciudadanos in the Congress of Deputies and candidate to lead the party as political spokesperson, Edmundo Bal, has urged the current president of the party, Inés Arrimadas, to take "a step to the side" after accusing her of "putting to people ahead" with his "official" candidacy to really "continue to command from behind", while questioning how Cs can be refounded "with the same faces that presided over the old".

"I'm not going to go there," Bal stressed this Saturday in statements to the media before holding, together with the Madrid councilor and candidate for general secretary of the formation, Santiago Saura, a meeting with affiliates at the headquarters of Cs in Valencia. "What --Arrimadas-- has done with the official candidacy is to put some people ahead so that she can continue to command the party from behind," he reproached.

Bal, who has indicated that the Cs charges "cannot and should not deny the bad situation in which the party finds itself", has claimed to "return to the bases" of the formation to "broaden its ideological space" and that in the The project "fits both the center-right and the center-left, and those of us who define ourselves as the pure center, which is what many of us who are active in Cs are."

Thus, he has defended the "brave and determined step" of his candidacy for the fact of "opposing that of Inés Arrimadas (...), which would necessarily lead us to plunge into the ravine of extinction", and has opted for a refoundation "for real" and not "merely cosmetic".

"This candidacy has already achieved something very relevant, which is awakening the illusion of affiliates and militants as the first step to spread that illusion. Also to voters in these important electoral processes that we are going to have during 2023," he said.

COMPLAINT "PRESSURE" FROM THE "OFFICIAL APPARATUS"

At this point, he has denounced the "pressure" that "many" of the affiliates and militants "are receiving from the party's official apparatus, telling them that we are a candidacy that opposes the party."

Faced with this, he stated: "I personally said it with absolute clarity the first day I took this step forward: we are not a confrontational candidacy, we are not opposed to anyone." In fact, he has indicated that they intend to "integrate all the valuable people" of "the other candidacy."

"Starting on January 16, we are all going to walk together to guarantee the future of this liberal option, we are going to sit down to pull this car, to make Ciudadanos that liberal party attractive to the citizenry again, once again to respond to those principles that constituted the birth of Cs in 2006", he added, while calling for "truth, courtesy, elegance, education and not getting personal". "We have strictly respected this rule," he admitted.

In this regard, he stressed that his candidacy "speaks clearly" and puts "the cards face up." "I will be a candidate in the primaries for the Presidency of the Government of Spain", he remarked, while regretting that this fact seems to be that "it has not yet been made clear to some colleagues from the other candidacy".

"SOLEDAD" OF INSTITUTIONAL POSITIONS

Asked about the criticism of the regional coordinator of Ciudadanos in the Valencian Community, María Muñoz, or the trustee of Cs in Les Corts, Ruth Merino, of the process of refounding the formation, Bal lamented the "feeling of loneliness" felt by the institutional positions of the party, a situation that he has attributed to the fact that the national leadership "does not go" to those places.

Faced with this, he has defended that his candidacy tries to "not only have the phone open for when they call you, but to call you" because "we need to listen to what the affiliate and the institutional position want."

In the case of Merino, he has stated that "just yesterday" he spoke by phone with her and has indicated that this "is not the first call", but rather "during this entire legislature and with the various problems that have occurred in the Valencian Parliament She has been spoken to on numerous occasions and even not only to solve her problems, but also to congratulate her on her brilliant interventions".

In this sense, he has considered that the current trustee of Cs in Les Corts is a person who is "in perfect harmony" with his candidacy. "When she has had problems, the one she has spoken to has been María Muñoz and me, she has always given her support and we have had the phone available," she stressed.

"SHADOWS" OF THE REFOUNDING PROCESS

On the other hand, he has admitted that he "perfectly" understands the "critical" people with the Cs re-foundation process, as well as the numerous "shadows" of the process. "We promise that we are going to illuminate and remove those shadows," she has indicated.

"We carry out 2,300 surveys among affiliates, supporters and institutional positions where the majority of our party feels in relation to the red lines that we must have when agreeing, and our affiliates tell us that these lines are the values ​​of our Constitution. Therefore, we must broaden the ideological spectrum because our affiliates are asking us to do so," he added.

Bal has mentioned that this study has revealed that "only 5% of affiliates are in favor of an organizational system that is based on two-headedness." However, he has criticized that the current leadership of the formation "is the system that it intends to follow" because it is convenient for Inés Arrimadas "to remain in the Congress of Deputies as spokesperson for the parliamentary group without having to submit, for example, to the debate that We are going to have Patricia Guasp and I in a couple of days and without publicly confronting ideas."

At this point, he has charged against the national leadership, which he has accused of pretending that these consultations "are not binding." "How are they not going to be binding?" He wondered, while guaranteeing that for his candidacy these opinions are going to be "absolutely imperative."

In fact, it has advanced that "the day after" reaching the party leadership, it will publish all this information with the purpose that "everyone finds out what the majority of affiliates think" of Cs.

"IS THE HEIGHT OF THE HEIGHTS"

Edmundo Bal has once again charged against the national leadership and Arrimadas: "The last straw is when, at the end of this whole process, it seems that the result of the refoundation will be that the leaders will continue to be the same." And, in this regard, he has asked himself "how something is going to be refounded, turning the old into a new one with the same faces that presided over the old". "At that moment, I, within the statutory bodies of the party, raise my hand and say that I am not going to go there," he said.

For this reason, he has asked the current leader of the formation to take "a step to the side". "What she has done --Arrimadas-- with the official candidacy is to put some people ahead of her so that she can continue to command the party from behind", she has censured her.

Thus, he regretted that, with this, "in the end, when the citizens turn on the television, they will continue to see the face of Inés Arrimadas." "If they turn on the TV and see Arrimadas's face, they will still not vote for Ciudadanos, but if they see new faces they will say this, it does seem real," she considered.

For all these reasons, he has called for "a new party" with a "much broader and broader" ideological spectrum in which people can feel "more comfortable, even those people who voted for the PSOE but who are now disappointed by the Pedro Sánchez's policy, something that does not surprise me".