Javier Lambán, the acting president of Aragon, and Emiliano García Page, the president of Castilla-La Mancha, have no plans to attend the PSOE Federal Committee meeting on Saturday where the party will approve its lists for the Congress and Senate for the upcoming general election on July 23, as well as its electoral program, according to Socialist sources.
These absences come after the Federal List Commission tried to replace the head of the list for the Congress in Toledo, Sergio Gutiérrez, with the acting mayor of the capital of Castilla-La Mancha, Milagros Tolón. García-Page managed to keep his right-hand man as number one on the list with Tolón in second place, but warned beforehand that the Federal Committee meeting would not be peaceful. He has now declined to attend the meeting, which will be chaired by Pedro Sánchez.
There were also ups and downs with Javier Lambán regarding the list for Zaragoza, where he did not want to include the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, who ultimately tops the list. But the Federal List Commission modified parts of this list yesterday to include Susana Sumelzo as number two in this candidacy and also made changes in Teruel. This has led to some members of the rest of the list for these two provinces resigning.
Lambán lamented the changes this morning on Twitter, stating that the socialists of Zaragoza and Teruel had democratically developed «magnificent candidacies for Congress and the Senate.» «I am very sorry that the citizens of Teruel and Zaragoza will not have the opportunity to vote for them,» he added. In the end, Lambán will also not attend the Federal Committee meeting.
Another change that has caused a backlash is the modification of the head of the list for the candidacy of Ávila, leading to the resignation of the rest of the list for this province.
