This Saturday, the PSOE of Extremadura chooses the name of the third general secretary of the party throughout its history, following Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra and Guillermo Fernández Vara. The 9,601 socialist members of Extremadura are called to vote from ten in the morning until eight in the followingnoon for the new head of the party that has governed the autonomous community the most times.
The succession process began following the regional elections last 2023, which the PSOE won, but without maintaining the Government of the Junta de Extremadura following two consecutive terms in power, and the announcement of the socialist autonomous leader, Fernández Vara, that he would not He would continue in that position following 15 years.
Two socialist candidates, with two very different party models, have passed the first cut in the collection of endorsements following starting the campaign on February 14: Miguel Ángel Gallardo, 49 years old, current mayor of Villanueva de la Serena (Badajoz, 25,750 inhabitants) since 2003 with absolute majorities and during the last two legislatures president of the Badajoz Provincial Council; and Lara Garlito (Cáceres, 38 years old), vice president of the Assembly of Extremadura, who has held important positions in the regional PSOE in recent terms as vice president of the party and parliamentary spokesperson.
If she wins the primaries, Lara Garlito will be the first woman to lead the Extremaduran PSOE. Throughout the campaign, the candidate has valued the policies of Ibarra and Vara and has announced as one of her main measures that of “kicking” all local groups and undertaking a regionalization of the party. Galito advocates a united, strong and credible formation to win over Extremadurans once more. “The party has to become a reference for young people once more, we have to talk regarding their problems, give hope once more and give hope,” stressed the vice president of the Assembly, who has described her candidacy as integrative, renewing, modernizing. and that projects the future, unlike another option that has been called very personalistic.
Miguel Ángel Gallardo considers himself the candidate for change “ once morest those who do not want anything to change.” “I think that in the end we all feel very proud of Ibarra and Vara’s policies. “It is not their efforts that are in doubt, but rather who has accompanied them in this task,” said the candidate, who assures that it is not a good time for the party. To reverse it, he wants to address a change with the militants with a human face. “I know which party I aspire to, of people who are permanently working on the streets to regain the trust of the citizens. There are those who think that we have won the last elections, but we have not been able to govern,” argues the mayor of Villanueva de la Serena. He considers that for him winning these primaries is a means, but the end is to defeat the policies of María Guardiola, the president of the coalition government of the Popular Party and Vox. “We have lost the street, we have left credibility behind. I aspire to a party that first recognizes that we have lost the elections, that we have to make changes to regain that trust, returning to being ordinary people,” he argues. And he says that his first objective will be for the Socialist Youth to have a leading role in the leadership of the party.
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The votes will be held in the 103 houses of the town, with 192 validation centers distributed throughout the provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz. The results will be known around nine at night. Once the name of the new general secretary of the PSOE of Extremadura is revealed, the 14th Extraordinary Regional Congress will be held in Mérida on March 22 and 23 for the election of the members of the new Regional Executive Commission, the Ethics Commission, the proportional of the Federal Committee and the Regional Committee elected by Congress.
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