The PSOE has decided to relieve its deputy spokesperson in the Madrid City Council, Enma López, from the leadership of the municipal group, after the councilor ran in the primaries to lead the socialist candidacy for the mayoralty in the elections scheduled for next year. In the internal process, she faced the current spokesperson, Reyes Maroto, who won with 1,045 votes against the 841 obtained by her colleague. The councilor reacted a few minutes after the changes were communicated during a group meeting: “Maroto has informed me of her decision to remove me from the leadership of the Socialist Municipal Group in the City Council, as well as from the deputy spokesperson position and the coordination of the PSOE Madrid neighborhood representatives in the different district boards. It is a decision I accept, as it could not be otherwise, but one I do not share.”
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This resolution, she has assured, is far from her way of understanding primaries and the internal democracy of political parties. “I have been a councilor for the PSOE in the Madrid City Council for seven years. My commitment to the party I represent is closely linked to the daily work I carry out to try to translate our socialist project into tangible improvements for the lives of my neighbors in Madrid. I do not understand one without the other,” she expressed after emphasizing that this goal was what led her to participate in the primaries this summer.
At the same time, the socialist municipal group has announced changes in its leadership. It incorporates councilor Meritxell Tizón as deputy spokesperson and councilor Jorge Donaire as district coordinator. “The new structure responds to the beginning of a political stage in which Madrid socialists will intensify their work with a clear objective: to be the government alternative that Madrid needs ahead of the municipal elections in May 2027,” it states in a statement.
With these changes, the party has assured it seeks to strengthen its political and organizational capacity, reinforce its opposition work, and advance in the development and dissemination of a city project. “The new leadership will also allow strengthening political and strategic coordination between the Socialist Municipal Group, the Socialist Association of the City of Madrid, and the Socialist Party of Madrid, sharing priorities, proposals, and a common roadmap to build the future of the capital,” the document reads before describing José Luis Martínez-Almeida’s government as an “exhausted government without answers” to problems such as housing, cleanliness, mobility, or the deterioration of public services.
López makes it clear that her commitment does not disappear, thus expressing her willingness to continue her work as a councilor in the Madrid City Council with the tasks that her group’s leadership considers appropriate: “I will do so, as always, with the enthusiasm and dedication that the position, my party, its members, and the people of Madrid deserve.”
Her decision to compete in the primaries to become the socialist candidate, against Maroto, was not well received by either Ferraz or the leadership of the Madrid PSOE, who considered that she had moved too quickly. “They told us we wouldn’t be able to,” López said after gathering the necessary endorsements to face the former minister, who even described her colleague’s decision as “disloyalty” towards her and the socialist project, recalling that both ran together in the candidacy with which the PSOE presented itself in the 2023 municipal elections, then led by Maroto.
The disagreements between the two leaders also surfaced during the final stretch of the primary campaign. While Maroto avoided clarifying whether she would include López in her team if she won, the deputy spokesperson defended that if she won, she would indeed count on the current municipal spokesperson.
