The socialist version that made the popular Cristina Cifuentes famous did not last 24 hours for Juan Lobato when she said “I’m not leaving, I’m staying” and, in less than a breath, the leadership of his party told him said “you I’m leaving now” and he left. There is no comparison between one case and the other, because the current candidate for various reality TV shows was shown the exit door from the PP national after half from Spain saw a video in which she appeared stealing creams in a supermarket and the other half discussed her fake master.
The general secretary of the PSOE of Madrid was also asked to resign by his own people, but for having contributed to making the tax fraud scandal of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s boyfriend a problem for the government of Pedro Sánchez. And not just for that. Also for betraying the trust of his executive colleague and former chief of staff of Óscar López, Pilar Sánchez Acera, by carrying a conversation between the two at a notary on WhatsApp, allegedly with private information from the “private” Alberto González Amador.
Monday morning, after the publication on Sunday evening of his visit to the notary, the resigning Lobato appeared to his closest entourage very sure of himself and willing to stand up to the federal leadership, where no one was able to understand the different stories that he continued with the reasons for his decision. During the night, and after the Supreme Court summoned him as a witness in the case investigating the state attorney general for the alleged leak of data from “Spain’s little friend”, Lobato “fell in spin,” according to sources. of Madrid socialism.
That same evening, he spoke with half a dozen Madrid leaders, including his Organization Secretary, Marta Bernardo; the head of Municipal and Regional Policy, Diego Cruz; the mayor of San Fernando de Henares, Javier Corpa, and the mayor of Parla, Ramón Jurado, to announce that he would appear before the press on Tuesday. He did not tell them anything about his intentions or the content he wanted to convey to the media, but he asked them to accompany him. Bernardo arrived at the meeting once the apparition began and there were also those who, like Corpa, decided to leave the forum and not appear as a prop for a cub that most of the paintings already considered dead.
Only half an hour before his appearance, which took place in absolute solitude and in front of a dark environment, he informed those summoned that he would lead the battle against the federal leadership and the candidate who would challenge him for the post of secretary general in the primaries, Óscar López. At noon, he again made several calls to the most representative mayors of the federation and verified that the support he had did not even represent 10% of the census of activists.
His fans then alerted him to the “role” he would play at the head of the Madrid delegation to the Federal Congress which is being held this weekend in Seville and, on Tuesday evening, he decided that the best option was to take some step back and leave. . He announced it to his entourage at 2:15 p.m. this Wednesday in a letter addressed to Madrid activists and which he sent a few minutes earlier to a handful of leaders, including Isaura Leal, president of his executive; the government delegate, Francisco Martín; the general secretary of the Madrid Group, Mercedes González and Marta Bernardo. He did not inform Ferraz of this at any time.
He leaves, but keeps the files of the deputy and senator
So much for the intra-history which led to the resignation of a Lobato in office for three years and who will keep the file of deputy in the Assembly of Madrid and that which he holds in the Senate by autonomous designation. Perhaps to maintain capacity. Or maybe because, as those who know him well say, the idea of “coming back on a white horse” floats in his head today if things don’t work out for Pedro Sánchez.
Regardless, Ferraz solved a problem for his 41st Federal Congress, in which Lobato’s presence was taken for granted before his resignation, which would have taken precedence over media interest to the detriment of content that management nationally presented. planned, which are also not too much. What they could not avoid was indignation because the scandal of Ayuso’s boyfriend ended up threatening the stability of the PSOE, and who knows, if also that of the government.
Anyone who confronts the tenant of Sol runs the risk of finding themselves excluded from the political council. It happened to Pablo Casado, it is happening now to the former leader of Madrid socialism and it will happen to Feijóo the day he decides to resist his bravado and his jokes, which does not seem to be the case today, quite the contrary. In every harassment and demolition operation it carries out, it also has a multitude of commentators and media always ready to applaud it.
With the resignation of Lobato and the resolution of the main concern of Congress, the way is open for Óscar López, Minister of Digital Transformation and Public Service, to become the sole candidate in the primaries that will elect the new Secretary General of the Madrid socialism. The PSOE Organizing Secretariat will today appoint a functional, reduced and operational leader who represents the different families of Madrid socialism, including the one that supported Lobato until the last moment. It will be chaired by Isaura Leal, current president of the PSOE of Madrid and the former secretary general José Manuel Franco will also be part of it. Its only task will be to pilot the primary process, the schedule of which will be ratified next Monday. If everything goes as planned and there are no more candidates, López will be proclaimed the new leader of Madrid socialism before Christmas Eve and, with certainty, he will be the one who faces Ayuso in the 2027 regional elections.
And at the PSOE they are sure that the thread that the PP of Madrid is desperately looking for, with the MAR factory at its head, “and which claims to unite the State Attorney General’s Office with Moncloa, does not exist” , accuses Sánchez. of being behind the leak of the email revealing the deal that Ayuso’s boyfriend had proposed to the prosecution to avoid prison time.
The whole story that Lobato constructed in his resignation letter supposedly to establish himself as a champion of clean politics and to distance himself from the leadership of his party is a construction that the PSOE mocks by recalling “that cleanliness is not achieved by going to the notary.” to certify a private conversation with an executive colleague. In any case, without Ferraz needing to move, Lobato verified that he lacked support to continue leading the direction he intended to renew in 2025. And it is not because he distanced himself from the pacts with the nationalists in the government, nor because he speaks of a future without Sánchez, nor even because of his naive opposition work against the corrosive Ayuso, but because he only put himself in a mess from which it was very difficult to escape. Especially since the different versions of the WhatsApp conversation that he recorded before a notary were all more improbable. Which was political suicide and which the Madrid left knows so well.
However, we should not believe that Lobato is the only name that has poisoned the dreams of Moncloa and the PSOE. There are still those from Aldama, Koldo, Ábalos and certain judges and prosecutors who, according to the socialists, “are ready to do anything until the left leaves the government.” The echoes of those who announce other shocks during the celebration of the 41st Federal Congress reach Ferraz. And not entirely organic, but from the legal field. So that later they say that times of justice are foreign to political agendas.
