Six political parties are fighting for victory in the Madrid Community elections on Sunday, May 28. These are the main candidates on the lists of the parties with a presence in the Madrid Assembly until 28M. According to the surveys, some of these formations could be left out of the regional parliament.
Born in Chamberí 44 years ago and with a degree in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has gone from being unknown to regrouping a large part of the center-right vote in just four years. She is the rival to beat in these regional elections.
The first coalition government in the community was forged in 2019 thanks to the support of Ciudadanos and Vox. Shortly after, in March 2021, Díaz Ayuso dissolved the Madrid government due to differences with Ciudadanos and called elections for the Assembly. In this second assault, Ayuso doubled the votes compared to 2019 and added more deputies than the entire left together.
The Madrid president also mobilizes the left, this time against her, being the target of continuous attacks from the opposition for her management of residences during the harshest of the pandemic or Health.
Madrid politics has had pitfalls even within his party. The then president of the PP, Pablo Casado, the person who trusted her as a candidate to preside over the Community of Madrid, tried to strike her down for payments to her brother by a company that contracted with the community in the midst of a pandemic. After a loud and controversial fight between the two, who ended up falling into ostracism was Casado.
From the beginning, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has shown herself to be a counterweight to Pedro Sánchez, a strategy that has not declined throughout the legislature and that, in fact, has increased as 28M has approached. According to the latest polls, the PP of Isabel Díaz Ayuso would be on the verge of an absolute majority.
[See the complete list of the PP’s candidacy in Madrid]
Mónica García, the Más Madrid candidate for the 28M elections in the Community of Madrid, is the regional leader of the party and deputy spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly. Born in the capital of Spain 49 years ago, she graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the Complutense University of Madrid. She specialized in Anesthesiology and after receiving a PhD in Clinical Management, she worked as an anesthetist at Hospital 12 de Octubre.
Spokesperson for the Association of Specialist Physicians of Madrid (AFEM), he played an active role in the White Tide demonstrations against the health situation in Madrid and officially entered politics at the hands of Unidas Podemos in 2015, as number 26 of the purple lists to the Assembly.
García did not hesitate to leave Podemos to form part of Más Madrid together with Íñigo Errejón, thus seeing his political and media weight increase in Madrid. Shortly after, the new formation rejected Pablo Iglesias’s proposal to present a joint candidacy when the 2021 elections were called, an election in which Más Madrid rose as the second most voted force.
Mónica García has served as leader of the opposition with as much perseverance as harshness during the last legislature. Facing the 28M, she starts again as the favorite candidate of the left.
[See the complete list of the Más Madrid candidacy]
The challenge facing the PSOE and its general secretary, Juan Lobato, in Madrid is complex. Because the Socialists come from receiving their greatest historical punishment in a community where they have not governed since 1995 with Joaquín Leguina, today already suspended from membership by the party, falling to third position for the first time. The sorpasso of Más Madrid opened an internal leadership crisis that ended up leading to the coming to power, via primaries, of the former mayor of Soto del Real (between 2015 and 2021), almost unknown at the regional and national level, who will now face his first elections, reports Pablo R. Roces.
Born in Madrid in 1984, he has a degree in Law and Business Administration and has worked as a State Treasury technician, Lobato is one of the most voted mayors in the Community, with 60% of the votes, and was ranked number four in the electoral list of Ángel Gabilondo.
The candidate for the Community and general secretary of the PSOE-M has surrounded himself with government officials in recent months to seek a comeback in the capital, although polls place the Socialists as the third most voted force.
[See the complete list of the PSOE candidacy in Madrid]
Rocío Monasterio is one of the most visible faces of Vox in the media. Married to the also leader Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, this 49-year-old architect and mother of four children repeats as head of the list after also doing so in 2019 and 2021.
The president of the party in the Community of Madrid has earned a place in the front row of the green formation based on charging against “the progressives” or against “supremacist feminism.”
Monasterio, who joined Santiago Abascal’s party in 2014, has also been very critical of the popular since the president of the Community broke relations with Vox before the campaign after four years as partners. She didn’t even show her support for pushing through the regional budgets.
The Vox candidate is fighting with Ayuso for the same electorate and in the event that the PP does not obtain an absolute majority, both formations should negotiate to govern.
To date, the numbers of Rocío Monasterio are ascending. Four years ago, Vox in Madrid achieved fifth place, behind PSOE-M, PP, Ciudadanos and Más Madrid, while in the 2021 elections, the extreme right outvoted Unidas Podemos and Ciudadanos to rank fourth. Facing the 28 M, the surveys indicate that Monasterio and Vox could lose steam.
[See the complete list of Vox’s candidacy in Madrid]
The candidate of Podemos-Izquierda Unida-Alianza Verde Alejandra Jacinto is the successor of Pablo Iglesias. With him, this graduate in Law and Political Science and Administration entered the Assembly in 2021 as number four on the purple lists.
At 33 years old, Jacinto is a very active lawyer in the anti-eviction movement since 15M. She is a member of the Legal Commission of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) and of the Free Association of Lawyers of Madrid (ALA).
In this 28M campaign, the Madrid purples have displayed a huge canvas with a photograph of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s brother and his candidate starred in a scuffle in the electoral debate when trying to give Ayuso a copy of ‘Morirán de forma undignidad’, a book written by the former Minister of Social Policies on the pandemic.
Based on the polls, Alejandra Jacinto’s challenge in 28M is to try to get United We Can to get enough votes so as not to have to disappear from the Assembly.
[See the complete list of the candidacy of Unidas Podemos in Madrid]
Elected in the party’s primaries despite not meeting the necessary guarantees last February, Araceli Gómez, known as Aruca, is in charge of ensuring that the forecasts of the 28M surveys are not met and that Ciudadanos can continue to have representation in the Assembly .
With a degree in Law and a diploma in Chinese Language and Culture, Gómez has been a deputy and councilor for Tres Cantos with the PP between 1999 and 2003. Later, in 2015, she made the leap to Ciudadanos, a formation with which the Toledo-born politician was adviser to the municipal group in the Madrid City Council.
[See the complete list of the Ciudadanos candidacy]
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