No two ways about it: El Campello’s PSOE has been stuck in a political crisis for years, and it seems neither capable nor willing to climb out. The latest episode: seven of twelve local executive members have stepped down, triggering the formation of a management committee to steer the party toward an assembly that will elect a new leadership, as reported by this outlet.
According to the party statutes, this move activates a transitional body charged with launching the process that leads to a full assembly and the installation of a new executive.
This marks the third management committee in five years, following those of 2019 and 2020, an unusual record in the region. At the center of attention sits Vicent Vaello, the party secretary in El Campello and the town council’s spokesperson. A heavyweight in recent years, Vaello has pulled the strings through shifting sands, though the internal rift does not look likely to end well for him.
Vaello, while serving as local secretary, ran in April 2019 to lead the ticket in the municipal elections with former Culture Councillor Pere Lluís Gomis, who ultimately resigned after disagreeing with Ferraz’s imposing placements that put Vaello in third place and two Vaello allies in fourth and sixth positions on the slate.
Ultimately, Vaello led the electoral list, and weeks later most of the executive resigned following Gomis’s withdrawal, forcing the PSOE to appoint a management committee on the eve of the elections. In May 26, the party won four council seats, short of forming a left-wing government.
Months later, elections were held to choose a new local leadership, which ended up deadlocked between Vaello and Javier Salinas, the latter aligned with Gomis’s faction.
After the tie, a supposed consensus slate emerged with Salinas as secretary and Vaello excluded, but the slate was split 50/50 between backers of each side. This move became the seedbed for a future rupture in the PSOE, when half of the executive resigned in January and in August 2020 the Federal Committee of the PSOE stepped in and dissolved the executive, leading the local group to form a new management committee, the second in just 15 months.
With the party fractured, El Campello’s PSOE waged another battle in September 2020, bringing Pere Lluís Gomis back to the foreground to challenge Vaello for control of the party. Vaello won the support of 54.7 percent of militants, suggesting the crisis had reached a temporary close.
In May 2022, the PSOE re-elected Vaello as the group’s secretary general in Campello, this time with a single slate led by the municipal spokesperson. In the 2023 municipal elections, the socialists again secured four council seats and remained in opposition.
Now, after the leadership vote that pushed Vaello aside, his future with the party looks uncertain.
(Citation: Local political reporting)