The European elections held this Sunday confirmed the political death of Ciudadanos, since the party suffered another electoral debacle by losing its representation in the European Parliament and currently only has 500 councilors and mayors, making it “a formidable party.” municipalist”. Specifically, Citizens He got 120,401 votes in today’s elections, 0.6%. Very negative data if compared to the 2019 European elections, where the party obtained 2,726,642 votes, 12.17%. That is to say, this formation has lost the MEPs it currently had and more than 2.5 million votes in today’s election.

This party lived a time of grace until 2019, with important milestones such as the victory of Inés Arrimadas in the Catalan elections in 2017; the coalition governments with the Popular Party in Murcia, Community of Madrid, Castilla y León and Andalusia; the Vice Mayor of Madrid, and the 57 deputies in Congress obtained in the April elections five years ago. After these elections, the PSOE and Ciudadanos had enough votes to form a coalition Executive, but this pact never came. This led to a repeat election in November 2019 and here began the decline of the party led at that time by Albert Rivera, as it went from 57 deputies to 10 in just six months.

This caused the resignation of Rivera as president of this formation and In March 2020 Arrimadas was elected as leader of Ciudadanos in a primary in which he faced Francisco Igea. The bad situation of the party worsened a year later, with the failed motion of censure against the PP in the Region of Murcia that they tried to promote together with the PSOE. A motion of censure that failed due to the transfuguism of three members of Ciudadanos and that caused Isabel Díaz Ayuso to call elections due to the possibility that this party would do the same against her in the Community of Madrid. From here on, all the electoral events chained defeat after defeat for those of Arrimadas.

The Catalans of 2021, the great setback for Cs

Actually, the next electoral setback that Ciudadanos suffered after November 10, 2019 was in the 2021 Catalan elections, where the party went from 36 deputies to only 6. The next was in May of that year, when it was left without representation in the Community of Madrid and, therefore, outside the Executive that they shared in a coalition with the popular ones. To this we must add the flight of charges that the party suffered after the maneuver that was intended to be carried out in the Region of Murcia. The most notable were those of former Organization Secretary Fran Hervías; that of the spokesperson in the Valencian Cortes, Toni Cantó, and that of former deputy Pablo Cambronero, who went to the Mixed Group and left Ciudadanos with 9 deputies in Congress.

The year 2022 was not better for Ciudadanos, since in February he lost another government, in this case that of Castilla y León, although Igea kept his seat, and in June he did the same with Andalusia, where Juan Marín went from being vice president of this community to leaving politics after not obtain the party representation in the Andalusian parliament. Although the lack of self-criticism in the party was evident despite the poor electoral results, shortly after the Andalusian elections, Arrimadas reported that the party was going to begin a refounding process in which a large number of changes would be carried out, among them, a change in leadership.

This refoundation process led to making known the division that existed in the party when Edmundo Bal chose in December 2022 to stand up to Arrimadas, took a step forward and presented her own candidacy to lead, thus breaking the idea of ​​the leader of Ciudadanos at that time of presenting a unitary list. Thus, Arrimadas and Bal faced each other in primaries in January 2023, although not directly because she simply closed the list led by Adrián Vázquez and Patricia Guasp, a list that finally won. They proposed to revive the party by separating with a two-headed leadership model, separating the Secretariat and the Spokesperson.

The electoral advance announced by Pedro Sánchez caused a new internal division in the party

However, what Vázquez’s decisions did was divide the party, especially notable in Congress, where on one side were Arrimadas and Guillermo Díaz, and on the other, the other five, among them Bal himself, María Muñez, and Sara Giménez. The relationship between both parties was limited to professional matters. The national leadership tried to downplay this and focused on promoting municipalism in view of the regional and municipal elections in May, but the efforts were of no use and Ciudadano lost all representation in regional parliaments and was left without its greatest bastion. which was Begoña Villacís in the Madrid City Council.

The advance of the general elections announced by Pedro Sánchez made Ciudadanos consider whether they should attend or not and finally the national leadership of the party chose not to appear in these elections, a decision that was not liked at all by the critical sector of the party, especially Igea and Bal . Both were highly critical of this decision, going so far as to accuse the national leadership of Ciudadanos of “keep the money left in the box” for the European election campaign, words that caused them to be expelled from the party, although they chose not to appeal and embarked on new political projects.

For their part, the remaining members of Ciudadanos focused on Europe, although Vázquez had in mind to run alongside the PP in the elections held today. However, The electoral advance of the Catalan elections disrupted these plans, since the idea was to go to both electoral events together, but the agreement was not consummated. This caused Vázquez to resign from his responsibilities in the party and, shortly after, to announce that he was going to run on the PP’s European list, which was also joined by MEPs Eva Poptcheva and Susana Solís. After that, Jordi Cañas, national spokesperson for the party, was in charge of leading the European adventure of this formation.

Despite the efforts he put into the campaign, Ciudadanos finally lost its representation in the European Parliament, so Cañas himself confirmed that not only is a 10-year cycle “closed” in this institution, but also “a cycle is closed” after 18 years of the birth of this training at the national level. Cañas, with a serious face, recalled at a press conference that the party still has 500 councilors and mayors, so he will continue “working” for them. Furthermore, he has already announced that despite these results, the remaining members of Ciudadanos are not going to “give up” and the party will be “reborn” again.