PP and Vox veto the candidate proposed by the Telemadrid council to direct television

Telemadrid headquarters in Pozuelo de Alarcón. TELEMADRID (Europa Press)

The PP and Vox have allied this Tuesday in the Assembly to knock down the candidacy of Alfonso García as the new general director of Telemadrid.

Proposed by the company's board of directors after a selection process with three other applicants, as EL PAÍS announced, the conservative vote against, and the abstention of its partners, has served to keep the controversial public company at the head of the public company Jose Antonio Sanchez.

This director, a confessed voter of the PP, is the Provisional Administrator of the entity by election of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who reformed the Telemadrid law to create that position and expel the previous address, which was uncomfortable for him.

His permanence in power will depend on the PP achieving the second change in that norm in eight months:

More information

The audience of Díaz Ayuso's new Telemadrid sinks

“I come with a backpack full of ideas, but empty of easements”, said García during the defense of his candidacy, in which he gave TV3 and ETB as examples of his project for their “territorial penetration”.

"I have a spirit of moderation, the capacity for dialogue, and to reach consensus and agreements with all the groups present here, without any type of stigmatization of anyone," said the journalist, dismissed at the time by Esperanza Aguirre (PP), and who worked for the City Council in the stage of Manuela Carmena (Now Madrid) as mayor.

"In my career as news director and presenter I am not remembered for any scandal of any kind that could have blackened my resume."

Neither those arguments, nor the detailed presentation of his project, have convinced the PP and Vox.

Despite the fact that the extreme right advocates the closure of the company, the two parties have gone hand in hand in all the votes that have affected public radio and television since the regional elections of May 4, 2021. Thus, they joined to reform the Telemadrid law and expel the management of José Pablo López, who had recovered the network's audiences, and its prestige, by making it independent of the influence exercised by the PP in its editorial line since the time of Aguirre.

Then, they agreed to cut the entity's budget by 10% to endorse Sánchez as Provisional Administrator.

And now they are negotiating a second legal reform that would increase their control over the company, which, in parallel, has experienced an audience crisis.

What will come first?

The new reform of the law that the PP is now promoting, or a new candidate?

“We will once again open a public call for candidatures to be presented”, said Celia Ferrero, president of the Telemadrid Board of Directors, during an appearance in the regional Parliament on Tuesday.

A long process with a known ending: the PP and Vox have the capacity to block, because together they cannot decide on the name of the new director general (unless the new reform goes ahead), but they can prevent the left from appointing him.

A circumstance that this Tuesday has once again caused an ironic reference to Sánchez, when the opposition has branded him a "permanent provisional administrator."

"It's up to you," he has said about his continuation in office, and only a few minutes after the right wing prevented him from losing his job.

Subscribe here