Enma López wants to be the next mayor of Madrid. Councilor since 2019 and one of the best-known leaders of the federal leadership of the PSOE, one of the political bombs of the summer is advancing in EL PAÍS: she will present her candidacy in the primaries to be the socialist candidate in 2027 in the capital of Spain. “I have been listening to many people inside and outside the party asking me to take the step for four years. In 2023 I felt that it was not my time, my role was to contribute to the group and now it is to lead a winning project. Well, of course it is possible to govern Madrid, and we are going to do it with an attractive project. We have to rebel against resignation because there are many people who are eager for us to inspire them to vote for us,” explains the socialist councilor.
Deputy spokesperson for the PSOE and federal head of Studies and Programs, López also states in conversation with this newspaper that she believes “it is very necessary and positive to demonstrate that the PSOE is awake and hungry” in a context monopolized by judicial cases that affect her party. And because of an overwhelming past: “I refuse to let the PSOE be content with being a good opposition. You have to have the profile of governing, of transforming people’s lives for the better.” This statement of intent is your business card.
The surprise move by Enma López responds “to the enthusiasm and certainty that another Madrid is possible” of the suitor and to the doubts that Reyes Maroto generates within a sector of the PSOE. The former Minister of Industry, current municipal spokesperson and general secretary of the Madrid city group, announced in April that she would run again to be the head of the list in the elections in May next year. The federal committee of the PSOE this Saturday with processes in July, September and November. The Madrid federation led by Minister Óscar López has not yet communicated when it intends to resolve the election, but sources at the highest level of the regional leadership are in favor of doing so before the political break in August. The census in the capital is about 4,000 militants.
“There is no need to be afraid of the primaries, in Extremadura they have gone very well and have strengthened the party,” says the candidate, who puts Álvaro Sánchez Cotrina as an example of leadership of a new generation that is making its way into the PSOE. “I don’t share that image that we have given for years that no one wanted to show up in Madrid because it is an impossible mission and those who did it were forced. I am from Madrid by choice – she was born in Vigo and next week she turns 40 – and there is nothing that excites me more than to be its mayor. Furthermore, the PSOE is something else. I don’t see defeatism, I see hunger, the people of Madrid are fed up with right-wing governments. We have to take all that desire and champion them, without being afraid of internal democracy,” he explains. And he gives as an example to follow Abel Caballero, the superalcalde de Vigo “In 2007, the first time he was elected mayor, no survey showed that we were winning,” emphasizes López, who was part of Caballero’s list, the mayor of mayors, with whom he learned what municipalism was. “Within the history of the party they told us that there were impossible cities and now they assume that they belong to the PSOE. When the PSOE plays strongly in Madrid the PSOE wins,” he asserts.
López continues to refute the doomsayers and emphasizes that the polls gave Zohran Mamdani a 1% chance “In the southern districts of Madrid is where they vote the most but where there is the most abstention, what we have to achieve is to solve their problems. I have traveled every inch of Madrid these eight years, visiting every neighborhood, market and group. I take the Metro daily and walk between 10 and 15 kilometers a day, I have worn out many sneakers knowing the reality of neighborhoods where wonderful people live who feel abandoned. And it’s not a coincidence. In Usera or Villaverde, the frequency of cleaning services is less, their streets are cleaned much less despite the fact that their inhabitants pay the same taxes as the rest of Madrid,” highlights López. Deputy spokesperson for the municipal group and spokesperson for the Economy, Innovation and Finance Commission, she has Madrid’s numbers in her head — “there are two: and there are 200 buses that stay in the depots every day because there are no drivers” — and highlights the importance of the contacts woven in the neighborhoods. “There is a big lie that we have been told, that Madrid is unfathomable. It is a set of small places, with their neighborhood leaders and specific problems, in the Metro expansion works. That civil society needs a party that represents them, speaks clearly and excites them,” he insists.
With a degree in Business Economic Law from the University of Vigo and an official in the Higher Corps of State Insurance Inspectors, López has dedicated herself since she was elected councilor for the first time in 2019 “to getting to know and living” the city “in the good and the bad like another Madrilenian.” A veiled message against Ferraz’s recurring commitment to parachutists as candidates. In silver: profiles without connection or roots with the capital.
Maroto, who arrived as a minister, was the seventh socialist candidate since 1999 in as many elections for the Madrid City Council. The number of spokespersons in the most populated city in the country – 3.5 million inhabitants, double that of Barcelona and higher than that of all the autonomous communities except Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid itself and the Valencian Community – is even greater due to the resignation or dismissal of their candidates. Jaime Lissavetzky (2011-2015) was the last head of the PSOE list to complete his term in the last quarter of a century. An erratic policy in which the rush in Ferraz has had a lot to do with it and which has resulted in the loss of 400,000 voters so far this century.
a personal bet by Pedro Sánchez, in 2023 the PSOE recovered 50,000 voters. López, who then sounded strongly like candidatable for his public knowledge and ease in television programs in prime time and on social networks, she was the director of Maroto’s campaign, which had the support of La Moncloa. The socialists started from their worst result with eight councilors out of a possible 57 and grew to 11 councillors. They went from 225,000 to 275,000 votes, to one seat and 40,000 ballots from Ahora Madrid, the hegemonic left-wing candidacy in the City Council since 2015. “Reyes has worked a lot, but I think another push is needed and to connect more with Madridism,” thinks López, who this Thursday informed him of his decision.
López’s opponent if she is chosen will be José Luis Martínez-Almeida, mayor since 2019 and who in 2023 achieved the absolute majority with the PP’s best result since 2011. “What is Almeida’s legacy? He has not transformed Madrid, it is a more difficult city to live in with more expensive housing and where moving is more expensive… Paris, Berlin, Brussels have been transformed in these years while Madrid let millions of trains pass by,” reproaches the socialist leader, a militant since 2002, which will give a lot to talk about at the doors of the PSOE federal committee.
