Vox imposes its agenda on Mañueco before the PP congress with three advisers

The writer Gonzalo Santonja in an act in Burgos, in June 2019. Santi Otero (EFE)

Vox has disputed two pulses with the PP in Castilla y León and has won both.

The extreme right managed on March 10, despite the reluctance of the conservatives, to preside over the Cortes and confirm the coalition, the first that unites them in an autonomy.

Yesterday, after weeks of hiding his letters, he announced his three advisers, agreed so that the fringes of the negotiation leave no time margin for Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, acting president (PP), to revalidate the position this week.

He will do it when the new leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, commands the party and cannot break away from the deal with the ultras after the party's congress this weekend.

The attempts of those from Mañueco to speed up the times did not break their now partners, who try to make it very clear that the pact comes with Feijóo already anointed.

The process of the formation of Santiago Abascal to demonstrate management capacity includes that the three ministries be governed by people with little weight in the party and with some administrative experience.

The Department of Culture and Tourism falls to Gonzalo Santonja, philologist and researcher on bullfighting;

Gerardo Dueñas will be Minister of Agriculture, of origins in the environment of agrarian unionism;

and Mariano Veganzones, a graduate in Geography in History, will be responsible for Industry and Employment after holding various positions in the Junta de Castilla y León when he belonged to the PP.

Only this one, in charge of Vox in Valladolid, held an organic position in the political force that he will now represent in the Government councils.

His new companions were not related to Vox.

paralyzed executive

The intention of the Mañueco team, which even assured that the investiture would be on Friday, March 25 or Monday, March 28, was to settle that handshake between the leader and his new vice president, Juan García-Gallardo, before the president of the Xunta will lead the party.

The opposition of Castilla y León has charged harshly against the cabinet colleagues for keeping in office, in times of economic difficulties and instability, a regional Executive paralyzed since Mañueco broke with Ciudadanos on December 20 and called the polls.

The alleged absolute majority that would allow him to govern alone became 31 attorneys out of 81, which implied a forced deal with Vox given the alternative of an electoral repetition that would have left him in a bad place.

Vox, with its 13 attorneys, without having yet tasted an office, has shown its intentions in the government agreement with Mañueco.

This includes imprecise axes but that speak of "intrafamily violence" or "orderly migration", recurring theses in those of Abascal, who personally directed the negotiations.

These concepts have caused that in the appearances of García-Gallardo in the Cortes, baseless xenophobic affirmations have been heard, or that even Mañueco himself finds it difficult to explain these new precepts in his government program.

An investiture pending the arrival of Feijóo

The national president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, assured that the acting president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, of the PP, would find out about his appointees as advisers for the Government of the Junta de Castilla y León directly, and not through from the press.

Carlos Pollán, the president of the Autonomous Courts, of Vox, confirmed this Tuesday that the appointment proposals had already been made and that there were only “fringes” left for the legislature to begin.

The times prevent that, if those differences to which Vox alludes are finished, Mañueco can be president this week.

This weekend the extraordinary congress of the PP is held in Seville to appoint Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the Xunta de Galicia, as national leader.

Vox has managed to delay the procedures so that the PP-Vox pact is initialed and begins its governability with Feijóo at the head of the conservative formation.

Feijóo has tried to link the pact with the extreme right with the outgoing management team of the PP, led by Pablo Casado.