Ayuso supports Feijóo's strategy but warns him about "dreamy" appeals to the PSOE

"Equality is our flag," Alberto Núñez Feijóo proclaimed on Thursday at the opening ceremony of the political course of the PP in Madrid. The national leader of the PP responded to the criticism he is receiving – internal and external – for the conversations he has opened about his investiture, in which he has been willing to include the nationalist and independence parties except EH Bildu. Feijóo is aware of the reluctance of a part of his party and the right to his decision to explore with the PNV and Junts per Catalunya the possibilities of an agreement to make him president, and today, before the main leaders of the PP in Madrid, where the most right wing of the party is located, He has defended a speech focused on reassuring those sectors, to which he has told them that, although he sits with the independence parties, he will not give in to their claims.

In the front row, in the garden of a hotel next to the A-6 in the Madrid town of Collado Villalba, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid and a reference of the most Spanish right, listened to him. The Madrid leader has endorsed Feijóo's strategy, except for his attempt to attract the PSOE, which he finds naïve. "The social base of the PSOE has changed. It is no longer equality. We do not realize it and we are appealing in a dreamy way to a party whose principles vanished, "argued Ayuso, who, except for that questioning, has supported the plan of the leader of the PP: "We must study all the possibilities so as not to abandon Spain," considered the Madrid leader. "Giving up is not an option."

While endorsing Feijóo's plan, Ayuso has warned against the risk of Spain ending up "in a secular and plurinational federal republic" if there is an agreement between the left and the nationalists. The president of Madrid has used harsh language to charge against that eventual pact, which evoked civil war. "We find a front that operates against Spain," he warned. "As in the twentieth century, they take us to combat," he said in a veiled reference to the Civil War. "That front doesn't need to win elections. It is enough for the whole of Spain to lose. They break the coexistence. They deny the others, the other supposed side, they want to make it disappear, which is how they have tried to govern in the Basque Country and Catalonia, annulling the other. This front is united to weaken Spain," Ayuso reflected, who has categorized the political forces into "fronts" and "sides."

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In line with Ayuso's speech, although much more measured, Feijóo has also raised the tone against the nationalists charging against "the blackmail" they pose, the day after having spoken with the lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu in the framework of the talks for his investiture. The leader of the PP has claimed a policy that thinks about the interests "of all Spain", not of a part. "I want the greatest benefit of the people of Madrid but not at the expense of the Andalusians. I want the greatest benefit of the Andalusians but not at the expense of the Valencians. I want the greatest benefit from the Basques, but not at the expense of the Catalans. And I do not want the greatest benefit of the independentistas at the expense of the Basques themselves and the Catalans themselves and of the whole of the Spaniards, "emphasized the leader of the PP, who, however, continues to defend his right to be able to "listen" to these sovereigntist formations. "Why does it bother them so much that we are open to listening to what is said to us from anywhere in Spain?" he asked. "Because we are free to say yes to what is in the Constitution and no to what exceeds the Constitution."

Feijóo spoke above all for his own, after the leader of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, has raised his voice to express a position shared by other popular leaders in private and has questioned that the PP sits with the separatists of Junts. To emphasize the message that sitting down is not the same as giving in, Feijóo has said twice that his investiture may fail because he is not willing to compromise with the nationalists. "It is possible that defending equality will leave us without the presidency within a month," he admitted. "I can assure you that we are not going to reach that presidency by shortcuts in equality among Spaniards." The popular leader has not referred to the proposal of the lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, for a pact with the State that recognizes the "plurinationality" of Spain and the "ability to decide" of the "historical communities", but sources of the PP leadership, in private, downplay that proposal and argue that it does not affect the conversations that Feijóo may have with the PNV in the coming weeks, if these occur.

The context is delicate for Feijóo and Ayuso, who except for his warning about the PSOE has begun the political course in peace, wanted to emphasize his support for the Galician politician as leader of the PP. "The leadership of the Spanish center-right corresponds to Alberto Núñez Feijóo: he has united the majority party in Spain, he has won the municipal and general elections. He is a man of principle who has come to politics to serve," he said in his defense.

In private, sources of the Madrid PP support that Feijóo sits with Junts with identical arguments to those used by Genoa to justify it. The PP of Madrid assures that the strategy of the investiture of Feijóo corresponds to a "shared diagnosis" with the national leadership, which indicates the previous work that Genoa has done to ensure internal unity before the risky maneuver of the popular leader. The plan, however, has had cracks, because the leader of the Catalan PP has publicly amended Feijóo's bet, but this time the tension does not come from the side of the PP in Madrid.

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