It’s called an electoral debate, and it is electoral, certainly, but it can hardly be considered a debate. The format made this impossible. At 9:00 p.m. this Thursday, candidates for the presidency of the Junta de Extremadura, which is holding elections on December 21, were to present their projects on regional public television. And not only the candidates of the parties represented in Parliament, the PSOE, the PP, Vox and Unidas por Extremadura. There were candidates from all forces presented in the two provinces, Cáceres and Badajoz. That’s a total of ten. Eight men, two women. So, placed in a line, each facing forward, in a format contrary to the most basic rules of the human exchange of ideas, an impossible debate began.
The start of the meeting, at the Mérida Congress Center, was a succession of two-minute monologues on the economy for each of the six extra-parliamentary candidates. That of Nuevo Extremeñismo asked for opportunities for young people, that of Pacma assured that his party would make the community “a reference in plant biotechnology”, that of dignified and sovereign Extremadura asked for more investments in health, that of For a fairer world accused the “professional politicians”, that of Ciudadanos presented itself as a defender of “small independents”…
What they said seemed no more or less reasonable or stupid than what the others, the main four, would say. The difference is that, polls in hand, none of the top six has a chance of being a deputy on December 21, although they were at the very beginning of the program with which Canal Extremadura was supposed to capture the public’s attention and direct it towards the political proposals in the running.
Then it was the turn of the matches with options. Once again, monologues. These were the rigors of the format against which the PSOE and Unidas por Extremadura opposed, believing that María Guardiola, president and candidate of the PP, intended to minimize her exposure to the confrontation of ideas. Guardiola justified his economic management, Miguel Ángel Gallardo (PSOE) recalled that if he became president it was because he broke his word not to govern with Vox, Óscar Fernández tried to assimilate the PP and the PSOE and Irene de Miguel (Unidas por Extremadura, the coalition that brings together Podemos and IU) declared that if there are good economic data, they are due to measures adopted by the central government, a sort of appreciation. with which the candidate He showed that his speech sounds different from that of the state leadership of the purple party. Then there was an additional minute for everyone, supposedly for responses that would bring some liveliness to the exchange. But that didn’t happen. The economic bloc has disappeared.
The second was the tie, which followed the same pattern but in which at least Gallardo referred to the “electoral conga” that was taking place. It was not a gratuitous expression. It was used in 2023 by Guardiola, who is weighed down by the newspaper’s archives on this issue. Before that year’s elections, the PP candidate accused the then president and socialist candidate, Guillermo de Fernández Vara, of taking refuge in an “electoral conga” by “broadcasting on public television” the same number of candidates from that evening’s debate on the same public television. Vara’s goal, Guardiola said at the time, was for voters “to know as little as possible.”
The roles have changed, and this campaign it was Guardiola who minimized his exposure to the debates, only attending this evening’s. And it’s not because there isn’t another opportunity. The popular candidate refused to participate in the debate that journalist Xabier Fortes will host next Thursday on RTVE, already in the home stretch of the campaign.
The rest of the party candidates in the Assembly will participate in this debate, which will be three-way. The PP requested to send another representative, as Mariano Rajoy did with Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría before the general elections of December 2015. But the other candidates from Extremadura refused and the PP will not be present in the second debate. This evening is therefore the only debate in which Guardiola will participate. “The debate is the result of planning, foresight and responsibility of a public media which understands that Extremadura deserves to listen equally to all its candidates,” explains Canal Extremadura in a statement on the chosen format.
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