Odón Elorza abandons his seat in Congress to "avoid disagreements" with his colleagues from the PSOE

Odón Elorza (San Sebastián, 1955) leaves Congress to "avoid disagreements" with the PSOE in a year marked by the electoral battles of the regional and municipal elections in May and the general elections to be held next winter.

The former mayor of San Sebastián has communicated by letter to the management of Pedro Sánchez the resignation of his deputy act after a decade in Congress where he distanced himself from his parliamentary group in votes as relevant as the election of the members of

in November 2022.

Elorza has taken the definitive step to leave the front line of political activity by announcing his goodbye to Congress.

The deputy for Guipúzcoa acknowledges that he has felt separated from the decisions adopted by his parliamentary group for a long time.

"I have verified that my contributions and parliamentary initiatives, as spokesperson for the Constitutional Party, have not been useful for some time to the Socialist Group," he included in the farewell letter sent to the PSOE leadership.

The Basque deputy has gone from being one of the strongest supporters of Pedro Sánchez to publicly questioning his decisions such as the replacements in the socialist leadership that the PSOE leader executed in July of last year.

Elorza warned of the

in approving changes in the socialist organization chart if before Sánchez was in charge of filtering them in the "media most connected to Moncloa".

Elorza had already maintained his own profile within the Basque PSOE during his 20 years as mayor of San Sebastián.

His own criteria that he attenuated in the Congress of Deputies after losing the San Sebastián Mayor's Office in 2011 when he was defeated at the polls by EH Bildu and when the PNV decided not to support him so that he could continue as head of the San Sebastián Consistory.

In his farewell, Elorza underlines the "honor" that "accompanying" the rest of the Socialist deputies during the last ten years in Congress has entailed and his "deep gratitude" to both the PSOE, the Gipuzkoan militancy and the voters for having entrusted him with the responsibility of being a deputy in the Cortes Generales.

Elorza justifies abandoning him as a "gesture of loyalty" to the PSOE and

, as well as committing himself to the defense of the "Coalition Government."

The abandonment of Elorza in the last stretch of the legislature occurs after his attempt to become a candidate for the Mayor of San Sebastián in a primary against the current spokesperson Marisol Garmendia.

Elorza achieved 115 votes against the 222 of his opponent in internal elections in which the former mayor criticized the lack of "neutrality" of the leadership of the PSE-EE of Guipúzcoa.

Despite this criticism, Elorza congratulated his partner and made himself available to Garmendia to collaborate in her electoral project without receiving a response from the socialist candidate for mayor.

Elorza's substitute in Congress will be

(Ataun, 1959).

With a degree in Teaching specializing in Basque Philology and Proficiency in English from the University of Cambridge, between 2009 and 2013 she was director of Educational Innovation of the Department of Education of the Basque Government, President of the Euskadi School Council and member of the State School Council.

In addition, she has been a socialist councilor of San Sebastián and is Secretary of Education, Culture and Basque in the Executive of the PSE-EE of Gipuzkoa

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