There was a time, not so distant in the calendar but already remote in political memory, when Ciudadanos was at the center of Madrid's power. The orange initials came to occupy the Vice Presidency of the Community of Madrid and the City Council of the capital and to govern alongside the Popular Party in both institutions. The party that aspired to become the great center force came to have councilors, deputies and government positions distributed throughout a good part of the region. Now there is much less left. Ciudadanos retains a minimal municipal structure and representation reduced to a handful of positions that face an uncomfortable question facing 2027: continue under acronyms that have lost a good part of their electoral weight or try to survive outside of them.
The answer to that question can be found more than 60 kilometers from Madrid, in the western part of the Sierra de Guadarrama. There, among pine forests and roads that lead to Ávila, Francisco Palomo continues to govern Santa María de la Alameda. He is the only Ciudadanos mayor left in the entire community.
Between calls and municipal matters, he is trying to move forward a City Council of nine councilors while deciding whether in a few months he will run again in elections under the same initials that brought him into politics.
This time, he arrived at the Mayor's Office in unconventional circumstances. In the last municipal elections, the Popular Party obtained a relative majority, but the lack of agreements ended up causing an institutional blockade. On December 12, Palomo presented a motion of censure with the support of two councilors from the PP itself and took the baton of command. "Those from the PP did not even present budgets and we were paralyzed, without subsidies or anything. They came to look for me," he explains.
The mayor speaks about local politics with the distance of someone who has stopped expecting too much from his political party. Disillusionment appears when asked about Ciudadanos. "When I say that I am mayor of Ciudadanos, people directly ask me if Ciudadanos still exists. I am the little that remains," he says. He remembers how he came to the team in 2019. "They introduced me to this party as if they were selling me a Ferrari. They talked to me about a modern structure, about a winning project." Now the image has changed: "I keep calling headquarters to tell them: 'Hey, the Ferrari won't start.'"
In Santa María de la Alameda, this lack of structure is not an abstract issue. The municipality depends largely on aid and subsidies from other administrations and needs technical and legal advice to carry out a large part of its activity. The mayor assures that this support has disappeared. "Ciudadanos does not give me legal or any kind of support. People do not appreciate anything and the party does not give you anything. The best thing about the party are the friends that I take with me forever, councilors from neighboring municipalities, mayors, when there were still more of us," he laments.
He says that in December he spoke with the management to obtain legal advice in case of presenting the motion of censure. "He told me: 'Let me know when you present the motion of censure.' I let him know and I'm still waiting here. The last meeting was in November and that's it." The mayor still does not know what he will do in 2027.
He does know that running again under the acronym Ciudadanos is not a simple decision. "I wanted to run, but after this summer I don't know anymore. I don't know if I'll run again, nor if I would run for Ciudadanos. Running for Ciudadanos today is a burden." The alternative that is beginning to gain weight is an independent candidacy. It would not be an exception on the Madrid municipal map. In small municipalities, where the personal knowledge of the candidates can outweigh the national brand, local platforms offer a way to maintain structures and candidates without dragging down the wear and tear of acronyms.
Palomo contemplates that possibility while remembering what happened in the mountains in the last elections. "They have been wrong for a long time. Looking ahead to the 27th, we will have to see if we present ourselves as independent. Before there were mayors and councilors from Ciudadanos everywhere, in the last elections the 'Ayuso effect' came and we all went to hell. Me included. Now I'm more alone than anyone." His story summarizes one of the main difficulties that Ciudadanos faces in Madrid: some of its officials retain local power, but the brand that took them there has become a problem that they themselves have to decide if they want to continue carrying on the ballot.
From the autonomous leadership they try to avoid this rupture. Alexis Ortega, coordinator of Ciudadanos in the Community of Madrid and first deputy mayor of Guadalix de la Sierra, recognizes that the priority now is to maintain the structure that remains. "What we want is to be there, it doesn't matter how. Our main function is to support our councilors and the mayor we have left, and work for the campaign for the next elections," he explains. Ortega defends that there is still space for a center option.
"We are aware of the situation. If our councilors want to create an independent platform because they think it harms them, they are free. Evolution involves providing alternatives," says Ortega. It is a way to maintain the link with local officials even if the name of Ciudadanos disappears from the ballot. In practice, the organization functions increasingly more like a network of councilors than as a party with its own territorial implementation.
The map of training in Madrid illustrates the setback. Ciudadanos currently has 17 councilors distributed in 13 municipalities, mostly concentrated in small rural towns and local candidates. The time when training had a relevant presence in the main institutions of the Community is very far away. Ortega assures that, despite everything, there are still militants who maintain the activity. He speaks of a "small uptick" in membership and participation over the past few months. "We meet once a month at the Príncipe de Vergara headquarters on Thursday afternoons and 20 or 30 people come," he says.
An activity that coexists with a much more uncertain scenario for 2027. Part of the councilors that Ciudadanos still retains are studying other political options, independent candidacies or, directly, abandoning municipal politics. The transformation can also be observed in the party headquarters itself. During its years of greatest expansion, Ciudadanos occupied a multi-story building on Alcalá Street, converted into one of the usual settings for its election nights. After the disaster of 2021, the organization moved to an apartment on Príncipe de Vergara street.
