Bye Citizens! It's Been Good to Know You

Murcia is a mess. First of all, as reported by BoT, some 400 party apparatchiks got their vaccines out of turn – as the PSOE complained to the prosecutor – back in January. Meanwhile, the vice-president of Murcia (as was), Mario Gómez (C’s) has denounced the PP to the police for massive fraud for sundry reasons.

In the opinion of the PSOE Murcia spokesperson, ‘the PP think of the region as their farm, where they can do as they like’. The PP has controlled the Murcia Region (it’s – confusingly – made up of just one province, Murcia) since 1995.

Back in Madrid, the Ciudadanos leader Inés Arrimadas wants to show her independence and underline the importance of a centrist party.

That, or go down with the ship.

The PP is under stress, it needs to stem the loss of support rightwards (imagine writing that a couple of years ago) as well as scooping up any ‘Riveristas’ unhappy with Inés from Ciudadanos. Not that Murcia was under much threat – as a C’s councillor there was all along in direct communication with the PP General Secretary Teodoro García Egea in Madrid!

Thus the Spanish public were treated to the farce of the revolution that never was, as, best foot forward – the PP bought (or ‘persuaded through their comely rhetoric’ if you prefer) the three Ciudadanos councillors necessary to reverse the motion of censure (plus one extra for luck) and gave them all juicy posts in the new Murcia regional government.

While this was afoot, the other regions with PP/C’s alliances were shaking. The Madrid Region, under Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has called for a snap election for May 4th to avoid any rebellion; Castilla y León have a motion of censure to deal with, although Ciudadanos is apparently getting cold feet; and the fourth region with the alliance, Andalucía, says they are happy to continue as is.

But, it gets worse for Inés, as two other senior party-members have now left C’s – one joins the PP – Fran Hervías (here), and the other, Toni Cantó, says he is returning to his day job (here). The question is – was the right-leaning Ciudadanos founder Albert Rivera fanning the flames as La Razón jubilantly claims - bringing his old party into the arms of the PP?

Result: Pablo Casado gets a few laughs from his ‘We honest’ comments, but comes out of this stronger; while Ciudadanos are, to all tense and purpose, nearing their best-before date.