Madrid Assembly admits the left's motion of censure against Ayuso, casting doubt on snap election

MadridCiudadanos' and the PSOE's motion of censure against Murcia president Fernando López Miras to snatch the government from the PP has caused a domino effect. The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has decided to call early elections and thus break the coalition agreement with Ciudadanos, with whom she has governed since after the elections on May 26, 2019. The hypothetical new elections, which would be on May 4, remain in the air because Madrid Assembly's bureau has admitted the motions of censure registered by PSOE and Más Madrid with the aim, precisely, of frustrating the plans of the president. The legal conflict arises from the fact you cannot call elections if a motion of censure has been called. Therefore, whatever was processed first will prevail: Ayuso believes that the signed decree is already in force, but the bureau has met and admitted the motion with the votes in favour of the two members of Ciudadanos - which holds the presidency - and the two of the PSOE. The PP's two members and Vox's one voted against admitting the motion.

According to the electoral law of the community, the dissolution of Parliament comes into force once it is published in the official gazette, the day after the signing of the decree. Sources of the Community of Madrid stress that Ayuso has signed the decree of dissolution of the chamber and the call for elections at 12 noon. "The decision is decreed at this time and is published in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid the next day," they said. They interpreted, therefore, that the motions of censure came later because they have been registered after 12. In fact, at a press conference Ayuso has taken for granted that the dissolution of the chamber was already in force and that she had prevented the motions of censure to prosper. And this, as she acknowledged, was precisely her goal.

At the same time, the registration of the motions of censure took place. According to the Assembly's regulations, the chamber's bureau has to admit them once it has verified that they meet the necessary requirements. At 2.30 p.m. a meeting of the governing body of the Madrid Parliament was called, which finally decided that the Assembly is not dissolved. Whatever happens, even if there are new elections, in 2023 there will be elections again in the Community of Madrid because Article 21 of the Statute of Autonomy of Madrid indicates that snap elections generate a new mandate which can only last until the next previously fixed election.

Ayuso: "Socialism or freedom".

Ayuso said her decision was due to "the instability caused by Cs and PSOE in Murcia" and the conviction that they would act the same way in Madrid. "I am listening with astonishment to the president. She is lying. How irresponsible," quickly tweeted the vice president of the executive, Ignacio Aguado, on Twitter. After defending that the regional government needs "stability and clear ideas", Ayuso has already launched the first messages with an eye on a hypothetical pre-campaign: "Madrileños have to decide between socialism or freedom".

Aguado met the media a while before, and has been the first to confirm Ayuso's decision, shared with councillors at the meeting of Madrid's governing council. The regional leader of Cs has assured that it is "reckless" to call these elections and has described the decision as the "worst" Ayuso has taken since she is president of the Community of Madrid. "I hope she comes to her senses," he said, before stating that he has no words to describe the "desolation" before this "irresponsible" move by the president.

Ayuso breaks with Ciudadanos after months of controversy, marked by constant clashes over her management of the pandemic. The Madrid president decided to dispense with her Minister for Social Policy, a member of Ciudadanos, in the first wave of the coronavirus after he criticised the management in of care homes. Since then Aguado has been constantly contradicted by members of the PP, despite being the executive's spokesperson. Ciudadanos, in fact, recently disassociated itself from the PP and Vox in the decision to destroy a feminist mural in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Lineal.

The siren songs about a motion of censure in Madrid are not new, although they have finally taken shape after the events in Murcia. The PSOE already hinted at this possibility for months due to Ayuso's controversial leadership during the pandemic. Precisely, the coronavirus meant the socialists did not make a move, in order not to provoke a period of instability at a delicate time, but above all because they lacked the support of Ciudadanos, which has always refused to break its government agreement with the PP. Speculation about the motion of censure in Madrid returned when the president of the Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas, considered offering support to Pedro Sánchez's government's budget. Ciudadanos' change of strategy in their relation with the PSOE could have had a future in Madrid, but then the Spanish government ended up approving the budget with a different set of allies.

The crisis of the right in Murcia has led to a paradigm shift that has caused movements in the Madrid government, but not in Andalusia or Castilla y León, where Vox had also demanded that elections be called. In these two communities, Cs closes ranks with the PP. In Andalusia this afternoon the vice presidents of the PP and Cs will appear jointly to renew their commitment to government, and in Castile the two formations have already done so in the morning, despite the fact that the PSOE also presented this Wednesday a motion of censure against the president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP).

PSOE no longer vetoed

Thus, Ciudadanos definitively abandons its veto of PSOE, maintained by Albert Rivera untilhet tried to avoid the electoral repetition of 2019 at the very lasat moment. A sterile gesture that confused his electorate and did not save him from a setback that led him to resign as president of Cs. His successor, Arrimadas, has also suffered a blow in Catalonia with the loss of 30 seats in the elections of February 14. In free fall, Cs is trying to survive by making itself seen in Congress but now also trying to leave the triple-right bloc, which, in practice, will be made visible through its participation in coalition governments with the PP - and the external support of Vox - and others with the PSOE.

The news has also shaken the political landscape in Spain. Pedro Sánchez was hoping for a period of stability after 14-F in which he could move towards the centre and reconnect with Ciudadanos. On the table, he hoped that voters would not be called to the polls for a year and a half. But Spain continues its frantic race of elections and Pablo Casado now faces a new litmus test on his leadership, after different voices in the right wing of the party applaud Diaz Ayuso's strategy.