Carolina Punset, member of the European Parliament for Spain's Ciudadanos (Cs), has decided to abandon the party. "In the next few days I will resign from the Party of the Citizenry [the political group's full title], which has ceased to be just that, of the citizenry," declares Punset in a letter to which Spanish digital newspaper eldiario.es has had access.
In the document, the MEP for the party led by Albert Rivera makes a very strong criticism of the party's leadership because of its "ultra-liberal" and "chauvinistic drift", its change of policy on energy issues and its radicalization in Catalonia. As well, Punset comments that, for anyone who doesn't toe the line marked out by leader Rivera on the Catalonia issue, "they spy on you as if they were KGB agents".
Another of the passages in the letter refers to sudden changes of ideology which the Cs party has undergone: "I still don't understand how you can go to sleep as a social democrat and wake up ultra-liberal... It is as though the Popular Party tomorrow morning converted to socialism".
Punset also says that she feels "shame as a feminist" when Ciudadanos refers to its policies as gender ideology when in reality they are "macho terrorism". Moreover, she suggests that the Cs position on Catalonia has radicalized "due to its electoral interests". The Ciudadanos leadership "has deliberately chosen to fight only for the votes of people on the right or, to be accurate, those that are strongly to the right".
At the end of the letter, the MEP states that it was very hard for her to abandon the party as she was "hoping for a possible rectification, which never arrived". Even though she is leaving Ciudadanos because she does not share "the majority of the political decisions" it takes, Punset will remain in the European Parliament, as part of the European Liberals group.
Special mention for Catalonia
Punset chooses to dedicate a full paragraph of her letter to the situation in Catalonia and the response that Ciudadanos has made to it. Here is the full text of that section:
"The subject of Catalonia deserves a special mention. I don't believe that anybody doubts my aversion to any type of nationalism nor my Jacobin position that I have defended without hesitation. However, this has not prevented me from realising that the situation of civil confrontation has gone so far, that it is necessary to be open to listening to one's political adversaries. There will be those who, for reasons of electoral interests, prefer the situation to become more and more polarized and chronic, but this will never be good for either Catalonia or Spain. In exceptional situations, it is necessary to look for exceptional solutions, far removed from insults, provocations and even further from celebrations or jokes in social media when politicians are sent to prison. Prison can never be good news. What is completely beyond understanding, is that [every opinion] that is not the application of Mr. Rivera's Article 155 is met with an accusative pointing of the finger. They tell you off, for talking to Puigdemont, to people in the [pro-independence] ERC, to anyone who is not part of the [unionist] 155 block. It's pitiful. Purely and simply, it's pitiful. They spy on you, as though they're KGB agents."