Ciudadanos moves away from the PP in full struggle for the management of the epidemic in Madrid

The coronavirus crisis has intensified the internal war between the PP and Cs in the Community of Madrid, that is, between the president and the vice president of the region.

For the first, the measures imposed by the Ministry of Health are exclusively due to political reasons.

For the second, "they save lives."

The battle is public and stark.

The "preferred partner" of the popular, with whom Pablo Casado wanted to seal the Spain Suma alliance, distances himself: Cs voted in favor of the investigation commission of the

in Congress and keeps the negotiation open with the Government for the Budgets .

"The rapport is full," declared the Minister of Justice, Enrique López, of the PP, insistently asked about the differences between Aguado and Díaz Ayuso.

He said it on Friday at the press conference called to publicize the appeal of the Community of Madrid against the Health Order that forced the closure of Madrid.

The Madrid vice president rejects this appeal, which he found out the night before, live, during an interview on TVE.

“It is a decision of the president.

I bet on speaking out, not on the courts, ”he said then.

"Today's mobility restrictions save lives tomorrow," he defended yesterday on Twitter, contradicting Ayuso and the national leadership of the PP once again.

"This Government [of Pedro Sánchez] that works for itself and under fear, needs people to be scared and to ask for intervention and control to be subdued and willingly accept its measures," said, while, the president in a interview in

.

There is no tomorrow without small earthquakes in Puerta del Sol, seat of the regional government.

The resignation of the director of public health, Yolanda Fuentes, in May - due to discrepancies with Ayuso in her desire to advance in the de-escalation - and that of the spokesman for the Covid group, Emilio Bouza, was joined last Friday by the.

In fact, the last days have been a constant coming and going of messages crossed between the two wings that make up the first coalition Executive of the Community of Madrid.

Not a trace remains of the initial pineapple of the July 2019 agreement.

They are two governments in one.

"We have the real opposition for months and it's called Ciudadanos," says a leader of the national PP.

“Ayuso is penalizing his relationship with Ciudadanos.

Coalition governments are difficult, you have to make an effort, get along with your partner so that there is stability.

She has not known how to do it ”, abounds a regional baron of the PP.

Ayuso has called a great economic event with businessmen this week in Madrid.

And, as this newspaper was able to know, the popular ones forgot to notify the head of the Economy in his Government, the counselor Manuel Giménez, of Cs.

After the publication of the news, sources from the regional Executive affirmed that they had not yet made all the calls.

"He will be invited for sure."

The person who had been invited, as a speaker, was the popular councilor for the Treasury, Javier Fernández Lasquetty.

In Ciudadanos the news of this congress fell like a bomb: "We were surprised when we found out."

The partners of the regional government differ in diagnosis and recipes.

While Ayuso boasts of "tranquility" in the hospitals, Aguado warns that "very difficult weeks are coming."

Cs has never looked favorably on the strategy of frontal collision with La Moncloa.

Aguado decided to dress as a referee and, in penance, the PP makes him find out from the press of transcendental movements of the Government of which he is part, such as the appeal before the courts.

The distancing is not only in Madrid.

The one that Pablo Casado baptized as his “preferred partner” voted last week in favor of creating a parliamentary investigation commission on the

of illegal espionage against Luis Bárcenas, in which former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz is accused.

Cs also maintains an open negotiation with Sánchez on the Budgets. [

Andalusia and Castile and León

In Andalusia, the Health spokesman, Emiliano Pozuelo (Cs), expressed his fear that "the regrettable confrontation" between the central government and Madrid would push the Andalusian Executive to "take its measures with other criteria that have nothing to do with the scientists ”.

Where the relationship between the PP and Ciudadanos is excellent, the Government of Castilla y León, its president, the popular Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, supported the criteria to restrict mobility in Madrid "due to responsibility".

The war in Madrid and time have blurred one of Casado's star projects: España Suma, an alliance with Cs that he intended to rehearse in Euskadi (where his party was stronger) to later move to Catalonia (where Cs won the last regional elections) .

The brand failed in the Basque Country (it obtained fewer votes than the PP alone) and is blurred in Catalonia, where the regional leader of the popular, Alejandro Fernández, does not see it clearly.

In spite of everything, from Madrid, both parties send a message of calm.

They know that pressing the red button - calling early elections in the Community in the case of the PP, or allying with the PSOE for a motion of censure against Ayuso in that of Citizens - implies risks of unforeseeable consequences.

Meanwhile, the cold war continues its course.

Defend yourself by discrediting protesting health workers

In recent days, PP leaders have incorporated into their defense line in the management of the epidemic in Madrid the attack on health workers who publicly express lack of means, investment or, simply, reveal their fatigue.

It does so by denouncing its alleged links to political parties or unions.

Alfonso Serrano, spokesman for the popular group in the Madrid Assembly;

Ana Camins, general secretary of the Madrid PP;

Congresswoman Beatriz Fanjul and Senator Sergio Ramos have criticized the public interventions of María del Mar Noguerol, a family doctor in Fuenlabrada, who was number 26 as an independent on the electoral lists of Podemos, IU and Ganar Fuenlabrada in 2019;

and Flora Espejo, a primary care nurse in Vallecas and a member of the Madrid Primary Care Nursing Society (SEMAP).

A few weeks ago, the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, clarified before a strike threat that "it is not the doctors", but a "union related to a political party" who wanted the strike, finally called off after an agreement in extremis with the Madrid's community.

Serrano, however, welcomes the Basque health organizations and unions announcing that they were continuing their mobilizations to obtain more means to combat the epidemic.

On his Twitter account he wrote: “Commendable news.

But this won't come out long.

Not even televisions will echo.

The Basque Government is an indispensable partner for the PSOE-Podemos tandem.

So don't even touch them so they get angry ”.

The demands of the healthcare community during the epidemic, however, transcend political sympathies, union affiliations and territories.

The second wave of covid has arrived earlier than expected.

Emergency physicians, internists, infectious disease specialists, anesthetists and intensivists express "concern", "tiredness", "sadness" and "fear" at having to face a situation that led to war medicine in many centers.

José Ángel Satué, doctor of Internal Medicine at the Fuenlabrada hospital, conveys a general concern: “The more resources we allocate to the virus, the less we allocate to the rest of the patients, and we have not yet recovered from the closure of the first wave.

The most basic thing has not been done, reinforcing Public Health and primary care, so that we do not go back to approach that precipice ”.