The 'cursed' Ciutadans congress is no longer so

BarcelonaCiudadanos is a party that has disappeared from the institutions, but remains organically alive. Or so it attempts. With the state leadership renewed at the end of last October under the Leadership of Navarrese Carlos Pérez-Nievas, and with the presence of Catalans such as Mariana BoadellaThe orange party was also expected to push through the leadership renewal in Catalonia, which is being run by a management team headed by former MP Joan Garcia. The regional primaries were due to be held in February, and in fact, in January, ARA already explained that there was only one candidate to lead the project in the Principality. Hector Amelló, former MP and councilor of Figueres originally from the Franja de Ponent region. However, the process has been very tortuous, as party sources admit, and so far it has not been possible to ratify it: there has been no vote among members; it has only been ratified by the party's Guarantees Committee. This has been the case because no one else has put themselves forward to challenge him for leadership: the deadline for submitting candidacies opened on Friday and ended this Monday, and once it was confirmed that there were no other candidates, it wasn't even necessary to open the primaries and vote.

However, this wasn't the most unprecedented aspect of the congress. What had never happened before in Ciutadans was that the Catalan conclave was held without waiting for the rest of the regional leaderships. In order to move forward, it was held at the same time as with Andalusia and Madrid. It must be taken into account that the orange party had been wandering around Catalonia for months without a leader, despite the fact that it had been more than a year since the former leader of the orange party, Carlos Carrizosa resigned.

The problem has been that before electing the regional leaderships throughout Spain, local boards had to be elected, according to party sources, which has been a nearly impossible undertaking. Without any significant presence in the region, they have barely been able to form local core groups, as required by the party's regulations. In fact, in Catalonia, only eight have been formed throughout the territory, and there hasn't been a vote either; they were directly proclaimed this June. Thus, a "resizing" and adaptation of the regulations have had to be carried out due to the loss of presence in the region.

Surviving with few troops

Ciudadanos doesn't know if it will be reborn after so much pressure. It even has competitors like the "centrist" Cree filled with former orange leaders or experiments like the Spanish Left, and the outlook is so bleak that They had to close their headquarters in BarcelonaIn fact, in Catalonia they only have one office in Parets del Vallès. Likewise, they only have ten councillors in the Principality – they participate in the municipal governments of Santa Coloma de Gramenet (PSC) and in the plural of Vilafant. According to sources consulted, there are around 3,000 party members across Spain—a third of them in Catalonia—a figure that contrasts with the 7,600 they announced in January 2023, 17,000 in 2022, and the record of 34,000 in 2019. From Ciuta.