Checkmate. It is highly likely that this is the situation in which the Socialist Party is left after the central committee that they will make tomorrow, because internally there are almost zero expectations and real possibilities that it will come to decisions that allow socialism to leave the perfect storm that goes through. The clientelism and the narcorredes that polluted the electoral roll, the fierce conflict that broke out after the internals of 26 May because of the mismanagement of these the board, the doubts founded by the irregularities of the process and the profound fracture of the coexistence, are the elements of the political cocktail that has this collective in the worst crisis of its last 30 years, with a leadership that all the time has tried to cover the sun with a finger.
It is that the directive headed by Alvaro Elizalde, and in particular this helmsman, have tried against wind and tide to circumscribe public discussion only to the conflict by leading the party for the next two years and defend ingessing its legitimacy to re-elect, since the list won a majority of votes on 26 May, although the deputy Maya Fernández , who led the opposition list – won the first individual majority. But that is only part of the socialist problem, as the background points to the imperative that parliamentarians and socialist hosts have demanded to really take charge, not only with declarations of goodwill, the problem of narcorredes and clientelism in the community, which translated into the so-called “tab party” and which has distorted the internality of socialism.
Opposition to Elizalde believes that the helmsman, as well as his general secretary, Andrés Santander, can be re-elected because they became part of the problem.
The issue of San Ramón first erupted publicly in October 2017 and both leaders are questioned in a timely manner for making the “fat eye” to this situation and not only that, but also from benefiting from these questioned clientele networks, because in the list of them was Monica Aguilera, the sister of the mayor of San Ramón, expelled from the PS precisely for her responsibility in opening spaces to these narcorredes in socialism.
A sector of the PS has been classified as an unacceptable veto that elizalde and Santander should step aside, in order to generate a transitional and unitary directive aimed at taking advantage of the current crisis, with radical measures. The opposition sees it as the minimum step to think of a possible way out, because – parliamentarians and socialist leaders stressed, both the helmsman and the secretary-general have already shown that they do not have the powers, the will, let alone the legitimacy policy to take care of the problem.
That is the scenario with which tomorrow socialism will sit down and discuss on the central committee. This week there have been a series of meetings in both sectors, the Elizalde environment and the so-called internal opposition, which will continue to prepare criteria and positions for tomorrow. But it’s hard to all those efforts to get to a good port for PS and in the game they know it, because what has been heard most these days is that, after tomorrow’s Saturday appointment, “nothing is going to change.”
“I don’t think Saturday’s plenary will be able to solve this crisis, I hope you feel the basics and conditions to do, but you don’t see the mood,” said Jaime Pérez de Arce, one of the founders of socialist “third is” – and who has been a fierce critic of the driving errors of the current board of directors.
The former PS chairman and currently elected member of the central committee, Germán Correa, added that “they have the votes to impose any table they so wish for, but all we said is that, with whom they have held both highest offices individuals of the party, if ratified, the crisis is going to worsen, because it is clear the profound inefficiency that the leadership of the party had to deal with this phenomenon.”
Correa put the spotlight on the way that they cannot have guarantees “that a cancer that got into the party will be attacked with the radicality that is required, especially considering that many elected people on his list had several votes in San Ramon. There is a matter of credibility that is not being assumed with due depth by the majority and, well, as most will have to take responsibility.”
Some more convinced than others, some more critical than others, both in the hospital and during these conflicting and tense weeks, the bank of Senators PS has been aligned with Elizalde. One of those “critical supporters” is Senator Carlos Montes, who, while defending the thesis that things can be changed with the same leaders behind the wheel, also wanted to make his message clear to the current directive: “One of the great problems we have had , has had to do with political leadership, with what the party is summoned to do. I’m critical of the way a lot of things have been done, obviously, and I think they can be done better, but the worst thing would be to keep the game on the same terms. A new stage is required in the conduct, action, training, political action of the PS”.
Behind the scenes, they say many MPs aligned themselves with Elizalde because they were loundered by negotiating quotas on the staff for the 2021 parliamentary elections, which will have to be resolved by the board. Others on the PS mention that some historical figures of the party have not been up to the crisis and have only watched over their power plot and individual political subsistence, such as former presidents Isabel Allende and Camilo Escalona: “It becomes very difficult to understand that they are defending the fence they defend in this discussion,” they emphasized in socialism.
Cards on the table
Opposition to Elizalde has had its own conflicts these weeks, as they failed to curdate a single position on what they should do on the central committee. Some have insisted that there should be no need to report tomorrow, because that legitimized Elizalde and the status quo in which they fear will be plunged into the underlying problems they have. The others were inclined to go, knowing that they are going to lose, since marginalizing themselves from the CC is the forced foot for total break.
Finally, from the series of meetings of all the socialist forces that integrated the Fernandez list, yesterday a document was resolved that established its political position: to convene the most suitable and credible leadership to face the serious problem of image and legitimacy PS vs. society, a leadership with unity, legitimacy and credibility to adopt a set of measures on the reorganisation of the standard, status and on the type of militant and party, an immediate ethical and political review of the standard, oriented only to leave militancy recognized and committed to the PS, to promptly convene an Extraordinary Congress or a Conference of Resolute Organization, dissolve and declare in reorganization the comunal San Ramón and external audit in accordance with the Organic Law Constitutional Of Political Parties, rigorously examining the correct use of the party’s financial resources during this period.
The document further stated that “if we do not open the way to a unitary solution and it is intended to persist in the simple re-election of the current leaders, we would like to point out that we are not available to give legitimacy what we consider to be a wrong decision policy, which will do nothing but deepen the crisis that ps is experiencing today. We will not participate or be responsible for measures that we consider harmful and have serious consequences for PS.”
This warning means in Spanish that opposition to Elizalde will not be added to the integrated table that the helmsman has offered in recent days, but they will not subtract from his seats in the central committee, as this will become the key basis for his inte political action Rno. Staying out of CC would be “a bullet in the feet,” they stressed.
The weather is cut with a knife, relations are broken and internal trusts, the once called “socialist fraternity” is absolutely fractured. A single example: on the PS they said that these days they eliminated – without warning – from the chat of third-party to Pérez de Arce and Raúl Díaz, two icons of the sector, because of the inconvenience generated in the helmelel the opinions that they have given during this time.
The worst, they say in the Socialist Party, is that in two more months the collective will not only be far from a possible solution to its conflicts, but will be further sunk in the swamp.
