Santander, May 31 (EFE).- The president of Ciudadanos (Cs) Cantabria, Félix Álvarez, has resigned from his position after the “unquestionably bad” results in Sunday’s elections, which left his party out of the regional Parliament and from most of the municipalities in which he was represented, to which he has added a “personal exhaustion” and the need to rest.
In a press conference to talk about the situation of his party, which in Cantabria only obtained 17 councilors, 15 of them in Astillero, Álvarez has emotionally and tearfully announced this decision that he has communicated to the national leadership around 10:00 a.m.
“You have to take responsibility when things go well but, above all, if you are honest, when they go wrong. For this reason, to which must be added personal exhaustion, the need to stop, to reinvent myself”, explained Álvarez, who is leaving his position after seven years in the party and of which, he has announced, he will continue to be a member.
Álvarez has pointed out that there is no name that sounds like to occupy his position, although for the moment it will be the organization secretary of Ciudadanos Cantabria, José Luis Martínez, who will assume it, because until today at 10:00 a.m. his resignation was only known by his wife, his press officer “for logistical reasons” and Inés Arrimadas so that there would be no leak or that no one would try to convince him to stay.
He has pointed out that this decision was made before the president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, brought forward the next national elections to July 23. “I don’t think Pedro Sánchez did it to annoy this idea that I had that was taken before because we knew that it was almost impossible to get that 5 percent vote,” he ironized.
See “intelligent” that Cs does not attend on 23J
And he has defended the decision taken by Ciudadanos not to run in the general elections as an “intelligent” decision, because now he is “off the game board” and because they have become a “Sánchez yes, Sánchez no”, of which his party “must depart.”
.”The best thing was to stop, try to rearm. I believe that the party began to suffer when the citizens saw us useless to achieve the purposes that we set ourselves and I believe that one of the facts that can get us out of this is to return to being useful, I believe that what happened yesterday is an act of useful for Spain”, he added.
Likewise, he has pointed out, using a metaphor, that “if you want to catch the wave you have to be in the water with the neoprene suit and the board ready for it to come, we do not know if that wave will come or not, but if you are on the beach lying down, that wave comes and you don’t catch it”.
In his opinion, Ciudadanos has to “arm itself” ideologically to reconnect with civil society and maintain the group of people who continue to think that Ciudadanos is necessary.
“It is a quite complicated and sad moment. I am used to closing stages, facing the future and I am convinced that the future that awaits me is much better than I can imagine, but I need to rest and recover my own pulse a bit”, assured Álvarez, who stressed that he leaves satisfied with the job done but not happy.
To questions from journalists about the possibility of being called from another party to offer him a position in the Administration, Álvarez has assured that he has no offer from “absolutely nobody” either before the campaign or now.