Cs claims against other parties and shows off "unity" at the start of the electoral pre-campaign

It focuses on families, the middle class and young people and includes them in the slogan 'For yours'

MADRID, 18 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Ciudadanos has claimed its autonomy this Saturday and has differentiated itself from other electoral options in an act in which the party has presented the eleven candidates that it has confirmed for the regional elections on May 28, an appointment at the polls in which Ciudadanos will try to survive. Likewise, he has boasted of "unity" within the party, after the open wounds in the refounding process.

"We represent the best electoral option and we have the best team," the national spokesperson for Ciudadanos, Patricia Guasp, began her speech at the Fernando de los Ríos Cultural Center, which was attended by just over two hundred people, exceeding the capacity .

The leadership of Ciudadanos had set a deadline of February 18 to leave behind the succession of negative internal news and shift the focus towards the issues that the party intends to defend in the face of the elections, focused on three major issues: families, the middle classes and the youth.

During his speech, Guasp has outlined the main lines of what he calls the "new Citizens", focused on proposing proposals for the aforementioned electoral niche. The 'orange' leader has defended the middle class, of which she has said that she is "at risk" and "squeezed", and she has advocated focusing on policies that can benefit them.

"Speak face to face with families, the middle classes who want to ensure a better future for their children, are not satisfied with living worse than their parents", he indicated, before stressing that Spain "deserves much more" than what they offer "outdated and immobile alternatives", alluding to "populism" and "bipartisanship".

Guasp, who has distanced himself from speeches of the past -more focused on issues such as nationalism-, has also praised the 'orange' regional candidates and, in line with the middle classes, has assured that they are the "red defense" of this group. Thus, he has guaranteed that the party will continue presenting municipal candidates and that the new stage of the party will lay the foundations "from the local and regional level."

In reference to "unity", the 'orange' leader has maintained that everything is possible" if they are "united" and "the new Citizens are more united than ever".

The Ciudadanos candidates for mayor of Madrid and Barcelona, ​​Begoña Villacís and Anna Grau, respectively, also spoke at the event, and they also alluded to unity within the party, with the bad situation they are going through as a backdrop. .

The deputy mayor of Madrid, who was moved to take the stage, has acknowledged that other political projects and the media are "quite ominous" regarding the future of Ciudadanos, but has defended the party.

In addition, he has alluded in a veiled way to the commotion two weeks ago, when he flirted with going over to the PP, and has lamented that "they are playing to make them confront each other" and "that they hate each other", but he has not mentioned anyone in particular .

In this context, she has assured that she feels "deeply proud" to belong to Ciudadanos and has conveyed that being part of it also "excites" her "to this day". "I ask you for pride and that you go with your head held high", she has finished off.

Grau, for his part, has mentioned the legacy of former 'orange' leaders Albert Rivera and Inés Arrimadas -who has not attended the event due to scheduling problems-, and has even mentioned other recognizable faces of the party, such as the deputies Edmundo Bal, Sara Giménez and Guillermo Díaz. "We need you, there is a lot to govern and to decide," he added.

The refoundation left Ciudadanos divided by the struggle for the leadership of the party between Bal and Arrimadas. The division is more evident in the parliamentary group, since there is tension between its members. Only Díaz remained and remains faithful to Arrimadas, while the rest supported Bal.

Citizens will attend the autonomous elections in the 12 communities in contention, but the name of the candidate from Aragon remains to be known, where the leadership temporarily suspended the primaries.

80 percent of the heads of the 'orange' list are different from the candidates who competed in the 2019 elections, a renewal that is a consequence of the succession of internal crises after the departure of Albert Rivera, the permanent trickle of casualties from the ranks of the formation and the transfer policy deployed by the PP in the face of the serious situation that the party is going through.

Of the twelve autonomous communities in which Ciudadanos is running for the May elections, there are only two candidates who also ran for the 2019 regional elections: Cantabria and Castilla-La Mancha, Félix Álvarez --coordinator of the formation 'orange' in this community-- and Carmen Picazo --president of the party in its autonomy--.

Guasp itself tops the list in the Balearic Islands; the national coordinator, Carlos Pérez-Nievas, will lead the candidacy in Navarra; the Valencian regional deputy Carmen Peris, is the head of the poster in the community; and María José Ros, regional coordinator in Murcia, now takes the reins of the list after the training crisis in the region.

In addition, the coordinator of the party in Gijón, Manuel Iñarra, will be the new candidate in Asturias; the Extremaduran deputy Fernando Baselga will be the candidate in Extremadura; and Rosa María Cuevas, who is in charge of the Melilla Manager, will now lead the ballot. María Isabel Bello from Tenerife has also been proclaimed as a candidate in the Canary Islands.

On the other hand, the Ciudadanos leadership has already designated more than 300 candidates to run in the May municipal elections, all of them in towns where it has not been necessary to hold primaries. Of course, the national leadership has not yet released the names of the candidates or the municipalities.

Now, facing the elections, management sources are optimistic and point out that internal data shows that they will obtain better results than the polls predict. The barometer of the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) for February predicts a support of 2 percent for the 'oranges'.