The executive of Más Madrid has defended that the list of the future candidacy of Frente Amplio for the Madrid constituency must be "led and composed" by "political and electoral referents" of the party, according to sources from the formation told Europa Press after the meeting held this Monday by the Madrid leadership.
The party's position is part of the negotiations it is holding with IU, Comuns and Más Madrid to finalize the new coalition candidacy for the early elections on November 29, a confluence that has already set the name Frente Amplio as its new electoral brand, although it has not yet designated a candidate.
A proposal for each force to draw up its lists in its territory
According to the interpretation made by the leadership of Más Madrid, the last regional political cycle has shown that forces with "territorial roots" are the "only ones capable of building broad spaces of unity and electoral power in their regions and countries."
For this reason, the party maintains that the formations with territorial presence that make up the Frente Amplio must present themselves in their respective communities and "form the electoral lists," in addition to expanding alliances with civil society to, later, reach a "confederal understanding" between territories.
In this scheme, Más Madrid considers that, being the only force in the space with 20 percent of the vote in its territory and the main opposition to the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, it will be the organization that leads the Madrid ballot.
Reference to the Comuns and names that sound for the candidacy
The Madrid formation proposes a model similar to that of Comuns, which in Catalonia leads the elaboration of candidacies in the four Catalan constituencies, with the integration of representatives from other allied forces.
Within the same plurinational space, other parliamentary partners have also demanded to lead their lists in their territories, such as Compromís, Chunta Aragonesista and Més per Mallorca.
For now, the party has not addressed specific names for this candidacy, although several leaders have already begun to sound as possible referents: the Madrid City Council councilor Eduardo Fernández Rubiño, the Congress deputy Tesh Sidi and the spokesperson for Más Madrid in the regional chamber, Emilio Delgado.
Mónica García, in the betting pool to lead Frente Amplio
The Minister of Health and leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García, has made herself available to whatever the parties jointly decide, while her name gains strength in the betting pools to head the Frente Amplio candidacy.
The official launch of this new confluence is scheduled for October 17, one day after the legal deadline to register coalitions for 29N expires.
In those same betting pools, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, the Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, and the former mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau have also appeared. In the case of Urtasun and Colau, sources from the Comuns indicate that these are two names on the table, although nothing is closed yet.
Clash with Podemos' proposal
Más Madrid's approach represents a direct clash with Podemos' thesis, which has advocated for holding open primaries to choose the candidate for the future left-wing candidacy, as a condition for unity and for voters to decide the strength each party will have on the general election lists.
In practice, the positions of Podemos and Más Madrid seem incompatible. Since the emergence of Más Madrid, the trend has been to run in independent candidacies from Podemos, except in the 2023 elections, when both formations shared a list for Madrid within the candidacy promoted by Sumar.
