The PSOE will approve its 29-N election lists at a Saturday meeting in Fuenlabrada. Nearly 300 members have lost their chance to speak, while photographers are barred because the party says the venue lacks space.
On 16 October, the candidate proposals reached the Federal Lists Commission for review, a day before the committee was due to meet. The session is scheduled to start at 10:00 on Saturday, 17 October, at the Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente in Fuenlabrada. The PSOE plans to approve its candidate lists there for the 29 November general election. Agencia EFE reported that provincial organisations had drawn up the proposals. The committee is also expected to approve the campaign budget.
The meeting will take place away from the party’s headquarters on Ferraz in Madrid. The PSOE’s executive has removed the usual questions session from the agenda, leaving roughly 300 committee members without a chance to speak.
Photographers will be kept out, with the PSOE supplying images and a video feed. The party says the venue is too small. It has called the gathering a technical meeting, though the agenda also includes a public pre-campaign rally by Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE leader and prime minister.
The decision comes as the party prepares for the 29-N elections and follows disputes over candidate lists at the 2023 Federal Committee. Some regional federations recall that Sánchez had argued disagreements should be aired at the committee. Javier Lambán and Emiliano García-Page criticised changes Sánchez and the federal executive made to lists submitted by some territories. Neither attended that meeting.
Page has not confirmed whether he will attend this time. His team said on Friday night that he had not decided. The latest dispute centres on Albacete. On 14 October, the provincial committee approved its proposed lists with 98.42% support. Emilio Sáez was initially placed first on the Congress of Deputies list, while Amparo Torres headed the Senate list.
On 16 October, the PSOE Federal Lists Commission replaced Sáez with Torres at the top of the Congress list, moving her from the Senate proposal. The provincial proposal had been presented by PSOE provincial secretary Santiago Cabañero and unanimously backed by the provincial executive committee before the vote. Albacete’s organisation later accepted the federal decision. Isabel Belén Iniesta became its leading Senate candidate.
PSOE candidate lists pass through provincial and regional party bodies before review by the Federal Lists Commission. The Federal Committee then gives final ratification, making the candidates official. The party was expected to publish the final information after that approval. Separate coverage of voting papers abroad has addressed another part of the 29-N process.
After the committee, Sánchez is due to hold a public pre-campaign rally in Fuenlabrada. The PSOE has governed the town since the first elections in democracy and wants to present it as a symbol of Madrid’s red belt. Holding the committee there takes it away from its usual setting at Ferraz and ties list approval to the campaign’s public launch.
