We read in ARA

With Citizens out of institutions, their former leaders have been relocating to the private sector – in some cases in a bizarre way like Albert Rivera–, or in parties, especially the PP. However, there is still a territory where Citizens retains electoral rights and aspires – without much confidence – to maintain them. The oranges are running in the Castille and Leo elections, this time predictably their last regional electoral dance.

It has become commonplace to see the Spanish government lose votes or need to reach agreements with multiple political parties. But it was ten years ago that the PP and the PSOE began to face this dilemma. The elections of December 20, 2015, led to unprecedented fragmentation in the Congress of Deputies and ended the historic two-party system: the PP lost 83 seats, while Podemos and Ciudadanos—from Catalonia—entered the lower house with 69 and 40 deputies, respectively. Despite their obvious political differences, on election night both parties offered the same diagnosis: Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, proclaimed that a "new Spain" had been "born," and Albert Rivera, the most visible figure of Ciudadanos, celebrated the beginning of a "new political era of hope and optimism." Neither project has that strength today—Ciudadanos has even disappeared—but the two-party system has not been restored. Now Vox and Sumar have taken up the mantle to consolidate a system with four national parties coexisting with the string of regional parties that are also key to governance.

This piece, originally published on August 1, 2025, has been updated this Tuesday, April 7, 2026.Outside of institutions after a free fall that has wiped out the formation, Ciudadanos is once again emerging away from parliaments. The orange party has made a bet in the courts and is appearing as popular prosecution in the two main cases around which politics in the State revolves: the Ábalos case of alleged corruption of the PSOE and the Spanish government, and the case concerning the management of the DANA in the Valencian Country. These are moves calculated to the millimeter that once again catapult the former leader in Catalonia Carlos Carrizosa to the forefront of the scandal of the trading of protected housing in Alicante for people trusted by the PP and municipal officialsthe scandal of the marketing of protected housing in Alicante for people trusted by the PP and municipal officialsaccepted at the end of July last year

"Some sell out the nation for positions and small change, while others give it away to those who arrive, towed by traffickers and mafias. And meanwhile, we Catalans are getting up at five in the morning to pay for the party." These are the lines from a speech by the leader of the Catalan Alliance, Sílvia Orriols, in the Parliament. Those, according to her, who sell out the nation for small change are the ERC (Republican Revolutionary Party); those who give it away are the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party); those who arrive, towed by traffickers and mafias, are the immigrants who manage to survive the journeys aboard the small boats. With an intonation that seems straight out of a TV3 recording from the 1980s, the Orriolsian rhetoric (a reduction of the ideological outpourings of the party's founder, Jordi Aragonès, a close friend of President Pere Aragonès) spits resentment at all the groups in the chamber, especially theirs in Catalonia, and blames them on the left. Or they can't live in peace, or with reasonable prospects, condemned to getting up at five in the morning to pay for the privileges of immigrants towed by mafias. Right-wing groups, especially Junts, are treated like brothers sold out by the system, but brothers nonetheless, condemned to come to an understanding one day or another.

Ciudadanos 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.

From Civil Guard to friend of the separatists. From UPyD and Ciutadans to offering himself to the PSOE in 2023 to liaise with Carles Puigdemont to build the plurinational majority that Pedro Sánchez invested. The political career of Alexis Marí (Valencia, 1972), who has been in the news this week for appearing in the messages between the former socialist organization secretary José Luis Ábalos and the Spanish president, has been very unusual.

The last municipal elections in Catalonia left a bleak outlook for Ciutadans: only ten councilors in nine municipalities. Santa Coloma de Gramenet was the only city where they won two. These were their best results in 2023, but they were bittersweet: the ERC candidacy, led by Gabriel Rufián, overtook them, and the Oranges ceased to be the main opposition party. The surprise came after the elections: the then mayor and now Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, offered them entry into the government despite having an absolute majority—17 councilors out of 25. Almost two years later, and now with the new mayor, Mireia González, The pact is moving smoothly, and both parties are boasting. Under the Socialist leadership, the Ciudadanos (Cs) leader in the city, Dimas Gragera, is Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, while Ciudadanos councilor Salvador Tovar has responsibilities in security matters.

In 2017, Ciutadans rubbed the sky in Catalonia: with 36 deputies, it became the first force in the Parliament and was gaining momentum for the definitive assault on Congress in the 2019 elections. It would be the blow to the repeat election seven months later: the formation went from 57 seats to 10. The party would then fall into a spiral of internal fights and a loss of leadership (with a hostile takeover bid by the PP (including) that have led to the practical disappearance of the institutions. But what has become of the former glories of the orange party?

At the height of the Catalan Alliance's rise, Sílvia Orriols's party has been recruiting former councilors from Junts and ERC who are dissatisfied with the paralysis of the Catalan Process, but it has also, surprisingly, recruited pro-Spanish parties such as Ciutadans, despite being staunchly pro-independence. This is the case of Kiko Ferrer, who headed the Ciudadanos list in the 2019 municipal elections in Sant Just Desvern and was a councilor for this party. He has also taken photos with Vox activists in this town in Baix Llobregat.

When Rai, an Italian citizen settled in Barcelona, began procedures to renew his passport, it was still seven months away from expiring. He has lived in Barcelona for over ten years and knows that the procedures at the Italian consulate in Barcelona are always slow. "I thought it was better to be cautious and do it with plenty of time, because I needed my passport for some business trips and I didn't want to take any risks," he explains. Despite this, he was unable to travel: the passport did not arrive in time. "Not only did I miss the trip, but last week I was forced to go to my home town in Italy, using my ID card, which has not expired, to renew my passport there". The slowness of the Italian consulate in Barcelona has cost him dear: €230 for the trip home, which he obviously paid out of his own pocket, and the trip he missed because his passport did not arrive on time. But he is far from being alone.

When the pro-independence movement surpassed 50% of the votes and obtained a comfortable absolute majority, few believed that unblocking the investiture would be so complicated. But the misgivings between JxCat and ERC came from long before 14-F and they have not managed to overcome them with ten days to go before the deadline for repeat elections. Elections that would lengthen the interim situation and would show the failure of politicians, but also represent an opportunity for the parties.

Ciudadanos' slump in the Madrid elections, in which it was left out of Parliament, has only intensified internal discontent in the party, which this Friday has manifested itself in a new wave of departures. After former Ciudadanos leader in Valencia Toni Cantó defected to the PP, four more deputies of the Valencian Parliament have taken the step of leaving the party. These are Cristina Gabarda, Jesús Salmerón, José Antonio Martínez -who had just been appointed deputy spokesman- and Sunsi Sanchis -who had just entered the Parliament replacing Cantó-. In parallel, former Minister of Culture in the Community of Madrid Marta Rivera has also left the party. During the election campaign she already participated in an event with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has to plan the structure of her new government after doubling her seats in the Madrid Assembly, and Rivera may be included.

Deep maneuvering between the PSOE and Ciudadanos in Murcia with important implications at state level. The two parties have filed a motion of censure against the PP to unseat it from the presidency of the autonomous community, where it is part of a coalition government with Ciudadanos and the external support of Vox. The motion, however, is not limited only to the Regional Assembly, but also to the City Council of Murcia. The aim that the current spokesperson of the executive and regional coordinator of Ciudadanos, Ana Martínez Vidal, become the new president to replace the PP's Fernando López Miras. In turn, it also seeks to end the government of Murcia's mayor, José Ballesta, also supported by Ciudadanos, and that the current deputy mayor, Mario Gomez, become the new mayor.

Parliament's legal affairs committee voted on Tuesday to waive Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí's immunity, as proposed by Bulgarian ultra-conservative rapporteur Angel Dzhambazki. His report received 15 votes in favour, 8 against and 2 abstentions. This vote is the first step towards accepting the Spanish Supreme Court's request, which requires the three MEPs to lose their immunity from prosecution before extradition can be requested. But it is not the final step, which will have to be taken by all 705 MEPs in a vote scheduled for the week starting March 8. After that, the Belgian and Scottish courts will be able to continue to process the suspended warrants pending the request.

The PSC won the 14-F elections in votes and tied with ERC in seats. But in which municipalities did each force have more voters? And within these municipalities, how was the vote distributed by streets? In these interactive maps you can see which has been the first and second most voted party in each of the 5,083 census sections in which Catalonia has been divided for these elections.