Susana Camarero to head PP Senate list in Valencia, forcing Consell reshuffle

Camarero leads the Senate list

Provincial PP sources confirmed on Sunday, 25 October, that First Vice President Susana Camarero will head the party's Senate list for Valencia. Earlier that day the list had been presented with Alma Alfonso, Luis Santamaría and Ruth Sánchez, but minutes later the same sources said Camarero would lead it and Alfonso would drop off. Santamaría, who already sits in the Senate, and Ruth Sánchez, mayor of Vallanca, complete the slate. Camarero is the second member of the regional government to appear on the PP lists for the 29 November general elections, after Elena Albalat.

Camarero has Senate experience from 2016 to 2019, when she chaired the Equality Committee. She also sat in Congress from 1999 to 2014 and was Secretary of State for Social Services and Equality from 2014 to 2016. After Carlos Mazón's victory in May 2023 she returned to regional politics, where she took charge of women's policies. She was also the spokesperson for the Valencian government during the aftermath of the DANA storm of 29 October 2024, a role that Juanfran Pérez Llorca later gave to Miguel Barrachina.

State electoral law does not stop a member of a regional government from standing for the Senate, since the specific ban in article 154 of the LOREG applies to Congress. ABC reports that Camarero will keep her portfolios until she takes her Senate seat in December.

Albalat's exit forces a reshuffle

Elena Albalat, the councillor for Social Services, Family and Childhood, heads the PP list for Castellón to Congress. The Diari Oficial de la Generalitat Valenciana published on Sunday the decree dismissing her from the post. Asked on Thursday, 22 October, how the move could affect the Consell, Pérez Llorca answered:

“In the coming days there will be news.”

The reshuffle will be the first since Pérez Llorca became president, though the fifth of the legislature. ABC reports that he must reassign the social services competences that Albalat held and wait for Camarero's departure before the Cortes Generales are constituted in roughly two months. The article also notes that the national PP leadership in Génova is placing management profiles on lists to involve them in the national campaign.

Congress list for Valencia

María José Catalá, mayor of València, heads the PP list for Congress in Valencia, a decision she announced herself on Friday, 23 October. Ricardo Gabaldón, mayor of Utiel and provincial deputy, is second and Belén Hoyo, a national deputy, is third. Fernando de Rosa is fourth, Esperanza Reynal fifth and José Javier Sanchis, mayor of Algemesí, sixth. Gabaldón and Sanchis both lead towns among the most affected by the DANA of 29 October 2024.

Compared with the Congress list of 2023, Esteban González Pons, Carlos Gil and Alma Alfonso are no longer on the list, while Hoyo moves from second to third and Reynal from third to fifth. In the 2023 general elections the PP won two Senate seats in Valencia, held by Estela Darocas and Luis Santamaría. The timetable now runs toward the 29 November vote, with the regional government reshuffle expected before the Cortes Generales are constituted.