Ferraz said that he would have 30 meetings from September to December and has only held twelve, limited by the international agenda
MADRID, 7 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, has held twelve party events with militants in the last four months of 2022. This figure is far from what was announced by the socialist leadership last summer, when it announced that Sánchez It would maintain some thirty acts with militants until the end of the year, of which 40 percent has been completed.
As reported from Ferraz at the time, the objective was to regain direct contact with the public to explain the measures that the Government was taking, as well as the Executive’s future plans, with a new campaign under the slogan ‘The Government of the People’.
In this regard, sources from the socialist leadership point out to Europa Press that from the beginning this series of acts was already conditioned to the president’s international agenda, which has been very intense in recent months.
In addition, they consider that its development has been a “success” because they wanted the entire organization to be involved in explaining the measures, from the general secretary to the councilors or local groups, and they see that this has been the case. Therefore, they are satisfied with the development of the campaign and anticipate that next week more actions will be carried out under the framework of ‘The Government of the People’.
The idea consisted, according to what Socialist sources indicated last summer, to reach “all corners of Spain to explain what we are doing and what we are going to do”, with direct contact with the citizens, and to demonstrate that they are governing for 95 percent of society.
The PSOE thus intended to show the turn to the left announced by the president in the Debate on the State of the Nation held in July, in which he announced new taxes on banks and energy companies.
They were also looking to turn the page after a few months marked by the rise in the polls of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the harsh defeat in the Andalusian elections in June, and the internal remodeling after the departure of the Federal Executive of the deputy general secretary, Adriana Lastra and the change of spokespersons in the party and in Congress.
The first of this series of events was held in Seville on September 3, with the start of the new political year, together with the mayor of the Andalusian capital, Antonio Muñoz, also a socialist. In his speech, Sánchez emphasized the existing links, in his opinion, between the PP and the large energy companies.
In addition, at the end of his speech, he answered questions from some of the attendees about inflation, the Executive’s measures or the drought that affects the country and Andalusia.
Also in September, Sánchez attended an event with socialist militants and sympathizers in Toledo, which was also attended by the president of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, and the city’s mayoress, Milagros Tolón. That same week he was in Zaragoza, where the party met its senior staff in the Federal Political Council, which includes the regional presidents and the general secretaries.
In October, Sánchez presided over rallies in Getafe and Soria and presented the exhibition on the 40th anniversary of the PSOE’s victory in the 1982 general elections together with former presidents Felipe González and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the former general secretary, Joaquín Almunia. In addition, he starred with González in a rally in Seville to remember that absolute majority that opened a stage of 14 years of socialist governments in La Moncloa.
That same month he had planned to attend two celebrations of the rose festival in Gavá (Barcelona) and in Galicia, but he was forced to cancel it when he tested positive for Covid.
Later, in November, Sánchez traveled to Vitoria y Baza (Granada) and in Madrid, he was present at a tribute that the PSOE paid to the writer Almudena Grandes at the Ateneo in the capital. Finally, in December he attended two events in Valencia and Barcelona in which he was accompanied by the socialist leaders in each community, Salvador Illa and Ximo Puig, respectively.
The head of the Executive has been far from meeting the expectations generated by his party in this regard, although he has been limited by a busy international schedule throughout the last quarter. In September he went to New York to the United Nations General Assembly, in October he attended the Spanish-German summit together with his counterpart Olaf Scholz in La Coruña and made an official trip of several days to Kenya and South Africa.
The following month he traveled to Viana do Castelo (Portugal) for the Spanish-Portuguese summit together with Prime Minister Antonio Costa and went to Indonesia to participate in the G20 summit, to later finish off the Asian tour in South Korea. In addition, Sánchez was appointed president of the Socialist International at a congress held in Madrid for several days.
Finally, in December it was the host of the Euro-Mediterranean Euromed 9 Summit that was held in Alicante and around Christmas time it made a lightning trip to Lebanon to visit the Spanish troops.
