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Last Friday the war broke out between the PSOE of Castilla y León and the party leadership. The attempt of the PSCyL to advance the primaries in the Community to the month of October It was immediately suspended by Ferraz, who denounced that it was against the statutes to convene them before the Federal Congress in November.
A movement by the Castilian and Leonese socialist leader, Luis Tudanca, who was seen as a play to avoid having rivalsgiven the lack of time to present candidates, and thus remain in office, given the intentions of the party leadership to maneuver to replace him and renew the leadership of the PSCyL.
Tudanca’s attempt to advance the primaries, and therefore the Autonomous Congress, finally came to nothing, but The reaction in the ranks of the PSCyL was furious in support of their leader and criticizing the “nonsense” carried out by Ferraz.while the management justified the decision.
A distancing between the autonomous federation of the PSOE and the leadership that is not limited to the political sphere, but is closely linked to the gradual erosion of the relationship between Tudanca and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchezuntil less than two years ago close allies and, increasingly, close enemies.
An eroded idyll
Tudanca, who was elected general secretary in October 2014, almost 10 years ago, began his journey at the head of the party in the Community being a faithful squire of Sánchezbut in recent years the idyll between the two has cracked.
The Burgos leader came to office only three months after the current President of the Government assumed the leadership of the PSOE, in July 2014, and their paths were closely linked ever since.Tudanca showing himself at all times as a staunch defender of the political line set by Sánchez.
Precisely, in the internal crisis of the party that led to the resignation of the leader of the PSOE, in October 2016, Tudanca was the only autonomous baron who clearly remained on their side and fervently supported him in the primaries that returned him to office less than a year later, in June 2017.
A relationship that became even more idyllic after the historic victory of the PSCyL in the regional elections of July 2019the first in 32 years, which, although it did not allow Tudanca to govern after the pact between Alfonso Fernández Mañueco and Francisco Igea, reinforced the figure of the Burgos. But the romance would not last long.
The gradual distancing
The turning point of the estrangement between Tudanca and Sánchez was the harsh defeat of the socialists in the regional elections of February 13, 2022in which the party lost seven seats and the leader of the PSCyL threatened to resign, although he finally decided to continue.
A step to the side that, at that moment, It would have been to the liking of the federal leadershipwhich already saw him incapable of offering an alternative in the Community. Tudanca’s continuity began to make him an uncomfortable element for Ferraz, with a blurred PSCyL in the face of what was the first agreement between PP and Vox in Spain.
The tensions from that moment only increased and reached a critical point when, before the general elections of July 2023, The federal leadership imposed Javier Izquierdo as number one on the party lists for the Senate, displacing Sara Galván to number 2, compared to the regional criteria.
A movement that Tudanca did not like, who was “disappointed and indignant” with the changes promoted by what until recently had been its close ally.
The struggle with León
The general secretary of the PSCyL would hit back at Ferraz months later, in January of this year, after the dismissal of Andrea Fernández from León as secretary of Equality of the party at the national level.
Tudanca decided to include it in the regional Executive, in what was interpreted as a clear challenge to Sánchezby integrating into its hard core a figure whom the president had dispensed with.
Furthermore, the Burgos leader has maintained tough fights with the PSOE of Leónthe largest group of the party in the Community and whose leader, Javier Alfonso Cendón, is a man of complete confidence of Sánchez and the Secretary of Organization of the formation, Santos Cerdán.
Especially tense was the situation created after Tudanca’s decision to remove the Leonese attorney Nuria Rubio, Cendón’s right hand, from the leadership of the Socialist Group in the Cortes. A decision that was responded to by the PSOE of León, which rebelled against the man from Burgos and demanded that he abide by the autonomy of the party.
His proposal to declare April 18 a holiday in the Community also generated tensions with the Leonese federation, to commemorate the Leonese Cortes of 1188. A proposal that Tudanca did not reject but demanded that it be done “from the bottom up” due to Cendón’s haste to process it.
In addition to Cendón, another figure interested in unseating Tudanca flies over in León: the former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, that continues to control the Leonese PSOE in the shadows.
His influence is still very present and was decisive in the election of the Leonese Nicanor Sen as a delegate of the Governmentin December 2023, replacing Tudanca’s number two, Virginia Barcones, removing an important share of power from the PSCyL leadership.
Oscar Puente
Both Zapatero and the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, with maximum influence in Valladolid, They have been maneuvering for some time to unseat the man from Burgos.
The one who was mayor of the Valladolid capital between 2015 and 2023 has become a figure of Sánchez’s greatest confidence and one of the most important people in Castilla y León within the PSOE.
Although he has flatly ruled out being Tudanca’s replacement, being aware that he is seen as a centralist in certain areas of the Communityis in favor of a renewal in the autonomous leadership of the formation that allows the PSOE to compete with a PP that has been governing in the Community for 37 years.
The controversies
The erosion of the relationship between Tudanca and Sánchez has also coincided with the outbreak of two notorious controversies within the PSOE of Castilla y León which have been a real ordeal for training.
In February of this year The general secretary of the Socialist Group in the Cortes, Ángel Hernández, was arrested for gender violencewhich had been characterized by maintaining a resounding discourse in favor of equality between men and women, a first-rate workhorse for the socialists.
Hernández resigned from all his positions and, when it seemed that his memory had been left behind, this summer another case, even more delicate if possible, broke out. The Agriculture spokesperson of the Socialist Group, Juan Luis Cepa, He was accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old minor whom he met through the Grindr application..
Once again, the regional leadership had to step up and Cepa resigned and left the party, but the damage to the image of a party that seems condemned to eternal opposition in the Community was already done. and Tudanca was forced to deal with a new controversy at a particularly delicate moment for training.
Sánchez does not respond
The cancellation of the PSCyL regional primaries by Ferraz has meant the emergence of a relationship that has been eroding more every day for two and a half years.
This same Monday, Tudanca assured in an interview that Sánchez does not answer the phone and that he has been trying unsuccessfully to speak for “practically a month” with the President of the Government, whom he recalled for his support “when almost no one believed in him”.
Also He has assured that for a year he has been hearing “names, leaks and candidates” launched from the Organization Secretariat to replace him with the sole objective of “destabilizing” his federation.
“I wanted to talk calmly about the present and future of the party here.”tell him my perception and listen to his,” he says. However, the response has been to suspend the primaries, “preventing” the militants from having a “voice”, something for which Tudanca has blamed the Secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdán.
“While we dedicated ourselves to working and fighting for Castilla y León against the first government with the extreme right that this country has had in an autonomy, others were dedicated to destabilizing”has settled.
Besides, Tudanca has assured that “loyalty is not submission and unity is not uniformity”. “I don’t like that two people decide in an office,” he denounced, further increasing the tension with Ferraz after the cancellation of the regional primaries.
Ten and the “little chairs”
For his part, the mayor of León, José Antonio Diez, in favor of Leonese autonomy and historically opposed to Cendón, Sánchez’s man in León, has pointed out that the discrepancies between Ferraz and the PSCyL They respond to “little things from inside, from little chairs and little chairs”.
“I don’t think there is a better alternative than Luis Tudanca, because he is the only one after Demetrio Madrid who has achieved a victory against the Popular Party in Castilla y Leónwhere the Popular Party has obtained absolute majorities almost consecutively,” he stated.
Díez has assured that it is “a way of playing dirty” by the Secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdána game that he claimed to “be used to” in León. “I suffered it firsthand and I believe that Luis Tudanca is absolutely right,” he stated.
Regarding the position of the provincial secretary of the PSOE in León, Javier Cendón, assured that “Publicly, on some occasion, he has shown his position against Tudanca and he is one of those who is in Madrid, in Ferraz, manipulating together with the secretary of the Federal Organization.”
“We are talking about one of the most important positions that the party has and someone who has screwed up so many times and continues to do so,” waiting for Cerdán to “fall” in the Federal Congress November because “it would be good for the party.
🪑💰GRIP TAIL #LUISITO
🏛️ For all types of surfaces. https://t.co/EathYNpGA9 pic.twitter.com/Ld1NKRQORc
— VOX Cortes of Castilla y León (@Vox_CortesCyL) October 4, 2024
Vox’s mockery
The situation of open war between the PSCyL and Ferraz has also been taken advantage of by Vox, formation that has been harshly attacked by Tudanca since he entered the Government in April 2022to attack the man from Burgos with irony.
The training has published on its social network account the drawing of a ‘Luisito Grip Glue’ ensuring that it is “suitable for all types of surfaces”ironizing Tudanca’s intention to remain in office, despite his distancing from Sánchez.
A relationship between the general secretary of the PSCyL and the president of the Government who is in his most critical moment since all the bridges seem to have evaporated after the cancellation of the primaries promoted by the socialist federal leadership.
The future of Tudanca It will finally be known after the Federal Congress in Novemberin a primaries and an Autonomous Congress in which Ferraz will try by all means to unseat someone who not long ago was a faithful ally of Sánchez.