Sanchez's first face-to-face with the critical barons: "The Federal Committee is not going to be as peaceful as it should be"

• 23-J Podemos and Sumar sign an agonizing agreement to go together to the elections: Irene Montero out of the lists

On the night of the scrutiny of the municipal and regional elections, as the PSOE debacle was consummated, the swords began to be raised within the party. Just 12 hours later they were back on after the appearance of the President of the Government in which he announced the early call for the general elections to "assume in the first person" the results.

"Now we can only do one thing: take care of the brand," they settled in one of the territories in which the policies and alliances of the first coalition government at the head of La Moncloa have been most questioned. The demand for accountability was put on hold until after the July 23 recount.

The apparent closing of ranks, however, jumped this Friday through the air after Ferraz decided to modify several electoral lists prepared by the different regional directorates of the party. Among them, that of Toledo to include initially number one and finally two to Congress the mayor of the city, Milagros Tolón, who did not appear on the ballot that the Socialists of Castilla-La Mancha had sent to Madrid.

"There is a lot of discomfort in our federation and in others because of the changes of names through impositions that many interpret as personal whims," denounce the team of Emiliano García-Page, the only socialist baron who achieved an absolute majority on 28-M. "The Federal Committee this Saturday is not going to be as peaceful as it should be," Warn.

The highest body between congresses of the PSOE meets for the first time after the loss of six regional governments -Aragon, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Valencian Community, Extremadura and La Rioja- and municipalities as emblematic for their acronyms as those of Seville and Valladolid. In principle, it was expected that the meeting would serve to encourage a party that was left in "shock" with the recount of 28-M, in addition to giving course a priori without surprises to the formalism of the approval of the candidacies for the next appointment with the polls.

The internal tensions due to the reluctance of the Socialists of Aragon to place the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, as number one in the Congress for Zaragoza and the discrepancies over the ballots of Valencia between the provincial and regional leadership had apparently been settled in the territories. No major tweaks were expected in the List Commission that had to approve them this Friday.

However, in Ferraz they also decided to disavow the changes that had been made by the still acting president of the Valencian Community, Ximo Puig, with the argument that there had been "a disagreement in the federation" and that they had tried to "achieve a plate that integrates everyone". In addition, they placed Javier Izquierdo, a member of the Federal Executive, heading the Senate candidacy for Valladolid, considering it "a very important asset", displacing Sara Galván, the one elected in Castilla y León.

In Aragon they also expressed their "deep disagreement" with the decision to modify their lists of Zaragoza and Teruel, whose composition, they said, "has hardly anything to do with the proposals of the provincial committees and, therefore, with the opinion of the militants." "We regret this decision that will produce, with all certainty, a deep discouragement among the militants a few weeks before the elections," they stressed in the party led by Javier Lambán.

Greasing machinery

With this tidal wave of movements as a backdrop, the PSOE will grease its electoral machinery again this Saturday after the national leadership of the party has been trying for two weeks to make pedagogy of the defeat in the municipal and autonomic. One argument is that in the general calculation "only" they were three percentage points behind the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. They also stress that the loss of votes compared to 2019, about 400,000, was not "an excessive stick". "People have not gone to another party, they have stayed at home," they say in the socialist leadership, where they estimate abstention around half a million people.

In parallel, the strategy of raising the candidacy of the PSOE to the generals in a kind of electoral ticket with the Sumar of Yolanda Díaz has been retouched trying to bring together the entire left on its ballot. The first to put this theory into practice was the president himself, who in an intervention in Congress before the deputies and senators of his group last week radicalized his speech by appropriating some tactics of Podemos such as the attack on certain media and the confrontation with the "powerful".

Positions relocated

Unlike the Federal Committee of March, the one convened today is expected to include the presence of Emiliano García-Page, the baron who has always spoken out most clearly against the policies of Sánchez and his partners. Ximo Puig and Javier Lambán will also attend, who will be evicted from the governments of the Valencian Community and Aragon that they have managed for eight years despite having grown in votes.

Of the six socialist leaders who will have to leave the baton when the new regional executives are formed, only Francina Armengol and Concha Andreu have accepted the party's offer to aspire, respectively, to deputy for the Balearic Islands and senator for La Rioja. In addition, it has tried to ensure in this way the political future of 14 of the 17 socialist ministers and 15 mayors who will also lose their positions when the municipalities are constituted next Saturday, including that of Seville, Antonio Muñoz, and that of Valladolid, Óscar Puente.

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