Dear friends,

With 100% of the votes counted, CDL has obtained 5.733 votes (0,04%). It is worth noting that for every euro spent, CDL obtained more votes than some of the more successful parties. Therefore and first of all, I wish to thank all of those people who have given us their vote, and who have shared our analysis that Europe needs Spain’s potential and that in order for Spain to be able to give its full potential, politics in Spain will have to work in a different way.

Breaking this brutal two-party politics that Spain has been experiencing for more than fifteen years cannot be achieved overnight, and we must remember that only a few weeks ago CDL was still totally unknown throughout the vast majority of Spain. Today, in those places where CDL has campaigned actively, the party is no longer unknown. Nevertheless, in order to gain the support of citizens it is necessary to gain their trust. This can only be achieved through hard work and demonstrating with facts what one preaches. This requires time. I still believe that the Spanish are not different to the rest of Europeans, and if the latter have the permanent option of voting for a liberal democrat party, alternative to conservatives and socialists, linked to Europe’s liberal democrats, it is not only necessary in Spain, but also possible.

From this moment on a period of reflection is necessary to determine how such a necessary objective can be achieved.

In the meantime, I wish to thank all of those who worked hard before and during the campaign, within their capabilities, with large and small donations, with enthusiasm, hope, great effort, and sleepless nights, to support me during my visits around Spain and to provide the best possible result for CDL. You are too many to mention here, but you know who you are. I honestly believe there is much that was positive in this campaign and that the visibility obtained was spectacular given the extremely limited resources we had. As I have said, visibility is only the first essential ingredient before gaining the voters’ trust. I also wish to thank those who stood as candidates and gave their signatures to ensure CDL could be present at these elections, and those European leaders who backed our party and my candidacy.

Most especially, I wish to thank those people who almost without interruption have worked with me throughout this campaign: Alfonso Reina Briasco, Juan Luis de Benito, Ramón Villaplana, Alfonso Reina Sanchez, Jacqui Cotterill, and Isabel Ruiz de Castañeda. Equally, I also wish to highlight the work of those who have on many occasions helped me out during this campaign: Gema Sanbruno, Carlos Cistué, Lenox Napier, Charles Svoboda, and Robert Aled-Davies. There are many other people who have contacted me during the campaign and who, at specific moments, played a key role to facilitate our mission: to all of those, too many to mention here, my most sincere gratitude.

This electoral campaign does not appear out of nowhere: it is the result of work which began approximately two years ago. It has been a long and, above all, difficult path, but with one constant objective: to offer people in Spain hope and a different, positive, optimistic, and
pro-European political project. Along this complicated path there have been many people who have participated and contributed to helping the project stay alive. Again there are too many to mention here, but I would like to say a very special thank you to President Manuel Alonso, who took on an extremely complex role and who has sacrificed much along the way, as only a few of us know. His work and presence have been of utmost importance for many achievements, and I would like to highlight the party’s international recognition as an area which we experienced together in a very intense way.

Finally, my most heartfelt thanks go out to my family and friends for their unconditional support as well as logistical help without which this
campaign would not have been possible. But above all else, it is my wife Victoria and my children whom I thank for having lived and suffered with me the ups and downs of a project of this kind, and most of all for having stoically endured my absence for the almost three weeks that this campaign has lasted. It is to them that I wish to, and must, dedicate all my attention in the coming days and weeks.

The two party politics is still very much alive in Spain, but in Europe there is still a third political force: the liberals and democrats. As on
so many other occasions in the past, Europe has provided solutions for Spain. It will take as long as is necessary, but a liberal democrat party will one day have its place in Spanish politics.

All the best to all of you,

Sean