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Updated Monday, March 25, 2024-16:49

  • Politics Joaquín Leguina, expelled from the PSOE for his "request for a vote" to Isabel Díaz Ayuso

On December 7, 2022, the PSOE expelled the former president of the Community of Madrid,

Joaquín Leguina

, from the party after opening a file against him for his "support" for Isabel Díaz Ayuso in the 4-M regional elections. Barely 15 months later, the former socialist leader is one of the names that the Madrid PP has proposed as an

advisor to the Chamber of Accounts

after the legislative change last December.

This change meant modifying the need for a qualified majority of two-thirds of the Madrid Assembly to an absolute majority of the Chamber for the appointment of these positions. Given that the

popular party

has that absolute majority after the 28-M elections, they are responsible for the election of five councilors: After the reform approved in December by Ayuso in the organization's election system, the conservatives are responsible for appointing five councilors:

Francisco Cabrillo, Graciela Soledad García, Carlos Salgado, Ana Cossío

and the aforementioned Leguina, who will receive a salary of more than 100,000 euros per year.

This regulatory change, which increased the number of councilors from five to seven and was harshly criticized by all the opposition parties, from the two leftist parties to Vox, has granted the election of a councilor to Más Madrid, which has opted for

Verónica López Sabater

, and another to the PSOE, which has chosen

Otilia Armiñana

. The Rocío Monasterio formation has been left without any. In fact, the radical right party was one of the most critical of the Ayuso Government, accusing the regional president of trying to "control" the supervisory body.

Leguina's relationship, since the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to the General Secretariat of the PSOE, had been deteriorating with the leadership of the party both in Madrid and at the national level until ending with his expulsion. In parallel, the former regional president was getting closer to the management of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and, in the run-up to the elections on May 4, 2021, he assured that "the least bad option" to vote in those elections was the popular leader

.

A few days later, in an interview in EL MUNDO, he assured that he had not voted for her.

This caused the PSOE to open a sanctioning file against Leguina in the same month of May, and also against Nicolás Redondo Terreros, former secretary general of the PSOE in the Basque Country and who would end up being expelled in September 2023 for his "repeated contempt." to the acronym" of the party after his criticism of the amnesty. The file also referred to a campaign event by Ayuso in April of that year at the

Alma Tecnológica Foundation

, to whose

staff

they belonged and where both were photographed with the Madrid president.

These situations led the PSOE Ethics and Guarantees Commission, the body in charge of analyzing these cases, to seal the expulsion of the former president of the Community of Madrid, considering that with his actions he sought to "

undermine the prestige and public image of the collegiate bodies of the party and its members

." Already outside the party, in February 2023, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Statute of Autonomy, Leguina assured that "today Madrid is much more attractive" and that the governments that succeeded him, all of them from the PP.

After now knowing his appointment as counselor of the Court of Accounts, which is in charge of supervising the contracts and expenses of the Ayuso Government, the general secretary of the PSOE-M, Juan Lobato, has stated that he is "not surprised" by the step of Leguina. "Everyone will know how they want to be remembered, all the respect in the world for Joaquín Leguina, but

honestly it causes a bit of stupor in those who made him what he was and this should make them reflect on

whether it is worth making this decision," he concluded. .