Ciudadanos’ about-face: from vetoing the old PP to becoming its preferred partner
Albert Rivera makes another U-turn, keeps disregarding his own election vows
On June 16, halfway through the Spanish election campaign, Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera dashed to Barcelona to take part in a round table and an event in Poble Nou, where he played a game of dominoes in a home for the elderly with his Barcelona candidate, Juan Carlos Girauta. That day Rivera quenched his thirst for the limelight with a message that made headlines and spread on social media: “We do not want Rajoy to stay in office”. Reporters on the Ciudadanos campaign trail made a note of his explicit veto on the PP leader, while in Rivera’s own party some braced themselves because they realised the implications of their leader’s words, but were not privy to his strategy. Yesterday Rivera swept his own vow under the rug. His handshake with Mariano Rajoy and the air of mutual understanding that surrounded their meeting —with an accord for Spain as the motto for the occasion— revealed yet another letdown by the liberal politician, the umpteenth since he moved his political career to Madrid.
From an outright refusal to vote in Rajoy —“no matter what” were his words during the election marathon leading to the polls of June 26—, Rivera softened his position with a promise of abstaining on the second vote, which now the PP wishes to turn into a yes to Rajoy’s reelection. Last Wednesday the verbal belligerence displayed by Rivera a few months ago changed into niceties. He provided Rajoy with a second wind by agreeing to start an open discussion to work together on the budget and spending caps. Rivera’s regeneration message is a thing of the past. His priority now is to offer his services as dealmaker to Rajoy and PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez. “If we can be of assistance with any talks, to make headway with the PSOE on the election of a president, for anything, if it’s for the sake of Spain, here we are”, he remarked. Only five months after signing a sixty-six page agreement with the PSOE to pave the way for Sánchez to become the new president of Spain, now Rivera is in as big a hurry as the PP to form a new government. Still, neither choice is consistent with Rivera’s words on 17 September 2015, when the liberal politician was the rising star of Madrid’s powers-that-be and he dreamt of having a voice of his own in the Spanish parliament: “We will support neither Rajoy nor Sánchez. There’ll be no investiture, no pact, no government, no ministers, no vice president with our votes … Do I make myself clear?”, he stated during an interview ahead of the failed elections of December 20.
Controversy and election manifesto
The fresh elections did not work out for Ciudadanos. Rivera’s party did poorly in Catalonia and underperformed elsewhere in Spain, despite Rivera’s media overdrive. Their mistakes on key issues of their election manifesto didn’t help. Since the December campaign, Ciudadanos have had to change course on policies to do with gender —they criticised Zapatero’s law against gender-based violence and claimed that “we must end positive discrimination in courts of law”— and they have had to shelf their shiny proposal of a single work contract, which was watered down in their pact with Sánchez. That’s a lot of course correction.
