The national direction of Ciudadanos has decided this Sunday night to endorse the request of the autonomous committee of Castilla y León that, a few hours earlier, in the afternoon, had asked to confirm Francisco Igea as Cs candidate for the regional elections of the next 13 February without holding internal primaries. The party leadership has wanted to show its support and unity around the figure of the former vice president of the Board in the face of the unilateral decision of the popular president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, who last Monday expelled the members of Ciudadanos del Gobierno and announced the electoral advance.

The statutes of the formation of Inés Arrimadas provide that the party leadership can appoint a candidate without holding internal primaries as long as exceptional circumstances concur. And so it has been. Mañueco’s maneuver – which surprised Ciudadanos a day after the party president herself spoke with the popular leader by phone without warning, according to Arrimadas, that the electoral advance would take place in just a few hours – is one of the reasons that They have led the dome to confirm Igea. In addition, according to party sources, the fact that the crisis occurred in the middle of the Christmas holidays, added to very tight deadlines to call a process of internal primaries, have been the definitive reasons that have caused the leadership to give this He passed.

“Today it is impossible to carry out with full guarantees [un proceso de primarias], for a mere matter of time and deadlines ”, is the conclusion reached this Sunday by the members of the Citizens Executive. A decision that has to be approved this Monday during the permanent committee meeting, which will be held telematically in the morning.

The coordinator of the regional committee of Castilla y León, Gema Villarroel, had expressly asked in the afternoon, on behalf of the body she represents, to designate Igea as a candidate for the presidency of the Board. “Such an exceptional and unjustified situation, such as the one that Mañueco has caused, when trying to respond only to the electoral calculations of Genoa, deserves that we react from serenity, but also from forcefulness, with a candidacy of unity and consensus, thinking exclusively in the general interest of the Castilian-Leonese and avoiding by all means that the PP manages to dynamite the change that the Liberals have managed to forge during these last two years ”, Villarroel based in his petition to the management.

Until this Sunday, the dome had not ruled out the plenary primaries, but the request of the autonomic committee has precipitated the decision. On the possibility of dispensing with the internal election process, Igea himself advanced last Wednesday in an interview in this newspaper that he was willing to continue leading the party in the autonomous community. “The normal thing is the primaries but there are circumstances that allow making appointments,” he said.

Less than a month ago, the Citizens’ leadership was accused, precisely, of calling a primary process expressly and without guarantees in Andalusia. The Executive announced the date of the internal process on Tuesday, December 7, to celebrate them a week later and with a period of just 48 hours to present candidacies. On this occasion, despite having a margin until January 9 – the deadline for submitting candidatures to the Board – the decision has been the opposite.