José Luis Ábalos (Torrent, Valencia, 64 years old) placed himself this Tuesday at the center of the biggest earthquake experienced by the PSOE in more than five years, openly breaking with the party leadership and ignoring the order to leave his seat. It is a turning point following a lifetime of socialist militancy and uninterrupted political career, in which he has held public and organic positions in the party and in the last decade he had had one constant: his closeness to Pedro Sánchez. .
The Valencian politician was at the forefront of the group of socialist officials who helped raise the current president to the general secretary of the PSOE following the internal crisis of 2016 and who remained faithful to him, and Sánchez reciprocated by leaving the internal management in his hands. of the party and naming him head of the mammoth Ministry of Public Works as soon as he came to power. Now, three years following the president unexpectedly removed him from the Executive, Ábalos moves to the Mixed Group in the Congress of Deputies and faces an expulsion file from the PSOE. The management had first suggested, then formally requested, that he resign from the seat to try to stop the image crisis derived from the Koldo case of alleged corruption. But he, who insists that he is innocent and that neither the judge nor the Prosecutor’s Office points this out, has not wanted to end his political life as “a plague.”
With a degree in Teaching, José Luis Ábalos only worked as a primary school teacher for a few months. At the age of 18 he joined the PCE; at 21, to the PSOE; And at 23 he started his political career as chief of staff of the Government delegate in the Valencian Community. From there he began to climb positions in the Valencian socialist federation, one of the most powerful in Spain, until becoming its general secretary in the city of Valencia in 1995, and in 2000 deputy general secretary of the party in the community. In 1999 he obtained his first public position, as councilor of the Valencia City Council, where he would remain until 2009, combining that responsibility with that of regional deputy. After a decade in local politics, he made the leap to national politics, and has been serving as a deputy in Congress for another 15 years.
In October 2016, the great crisis occurred that almost split the PSOE in two: Pedro Sánchez, who had been general secretary for two years, resigned in an agonizing Federal Committee, given the evidence that his strategy that the socialists did not facilitate the investiture of Mariano Rajoy – following 10 months of Government in office – was going to be defeated by the majority of the party. He then launched a race to win back the general secretary, with practically all the heavyweights of the PSOE once morest him, and in that bet he had the help of a small group of faithful, what came to be called “the Peugeot fifth.” (because in that car Sánchez traveled through half of Spain in search of support from the militancy). In the front line of that group there were two people: Adriana Lastra and José Luis Ábalos. Two people who became the right and left hand, or vice versa, of the new socialist leader, once he regained the reins of the party in May 2017 and gained total power, already uncontested, that lasts until today.
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Ábalos was appointed Secretary of Organization of the PSOE by Sánchez, and had been in that organic position for a year—focused on pacifying the party following the trauma of the primaries—when the socialist leader reached La Moncloa with a motion of censure and he was named minister of Development, the department that concentrates the bulk of the investments of any Government. He held both positions at the same time—number three in the party and Minister of Development or later Transport, the same pairing that the once all-powerful Pepe Blanco had embodied—for three years. The PP remembers these days that proof of the iron trust that Sánchez maintained in Ábalos is that it was he who made the speech presenting the motion of censure in June 2018. It was Ábalos who presented Sánchez before the Chamber as the solution to put an end to the damage to the institution that represented the corruption of Mariano Rajoy’s party. And it was also he, a year and a half later, who was at the heart of the negotiations with Unidas Podemos to seal the first democratic coalition government.
That closeness between both socialist leaders, boss and subordinate, was cut short in July 2021, when Pedro Sánchez announced a remodeling of the Government that left out, among others and unexpectedly, Ábalos. The president did not give public explanations for this dismissal; and, according to Ábalos, he didn’t give them to her in private either. “It bothers me that a margin of doubt has been left regarding my departure,” declared the former minister. And he seemed to want to dispel any suspicion that following that movement there was a doubt regarding the cleanliness of his management: “I’m very calm. What’s more, everything would have already come out. More than one has been invented, why not 21. I am absolutely calm,” he said. The same day he left the Government he also lost the position of Secretary of Organization of the PSOE. Sánchez kept him, however, on the electoral lists, which led him to revalidate his seat in the July elections.
A year and a half before his dismissal, in January 2020, Ábalos had been involved in the so-called Delcygate, a fight that was more political than legal — the case was filed in court — that broke out when the then minister met secretly at the Madrid-Barajas airport with the vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, whom the EU had banned travel to European territory. But in that episode Ábalos had the full support of the PSOE and Sánchez, and his resignation was not even considered. There were also no consequences for the then Secretary of Organization, at least immediate, following the catastrophic operation agreed between the PSOE and Ciudadanos to try to evict the PP from the Government of Murcia with a motion of censure in March 2021. But three months later, and for surprise, yes he was defenestrated, in the Government and in the party.
Now, the veteran Valencian leader, father of five children, faithful squire of Pedro Sánchez and one of the architects of his resuscitation, had been invited to leave his last public position, the seat, by order of the president. He has refused. “I never imagined my life outside of these acronyms,” he said this Tuesday. The PSOE has already opened an expulsion file for him.
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