In the PP, as in the PSOE, there are different profiles and discourses.
Within the initials, different shades of the same color coexist.
"Emilio García Page [president of Castilla-La Mancha] does not say the same thing as Pedro Sánchez," recalls a popular regional president, just as Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Isabel Díaz Ayuso did not sound the same.
“There have always been nuances,” he adds.
In the PP, moreover, there is an old struggle between the ideologues, less compromised, more concerned with protecting dogmas and essences, and the managers or technicians, less rigid, more pragmatic.
The first and last primaries held by the political formation, in July 2018, were presented in these terms: ideologues (Pablo Casado) against managers (Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría), whom the first side called, contemptuously, "technocrats".
The abrupt departure of Casado,
who inaugurated his leadership by announcing "the return of the true PP", and the landing of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's team at the Genoa headquarters meant the return of the managers to organic power and therefore, to the design of the party's communication strategy, displacing the more rigorous wing.
But they have just taken a turn, resuming the harsh tone of previous stages and approaching the speech of the Madrid president.
Popular leaders from different areas explain the reasons to EL PAÍS.
resuming the harsh tone of previous stages and approaching the speech of the Madrid president.
Popular leaders from different areas explain the reasons to EL PAÍS.
resuming the harsh tone of previous stages and approaching the speech of the Madrid president.
Popular leaders from different areas explain the reasons to EL PAÍS.
The resounding victory of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla in Andalusia, who achieved the first absolute majority of the PP in a land governed for almost 40 years by the socialists, seemed to show that Casado had been wrong to harden the speech to try to recover the Vox voter and that the strategy of moderation and giving priority to the economy over ideology was not only capable of neutralizing the extreme right, but also of attracting centrist voters, with the definitive push caused by the Ciudadanos debacle.
But since then, (July) until now, the PP leaders consulted have detected "that the street is more angry than ever with the Government of Pedro Sánchez for inflation, the price of electricity, and energy saving measures."
“In a very short time”, affirms a regional president,
“That discontent has skyrocketed.
And all those angry sectors, all those families, are votes.
That citizen anger, in electoral terms, is spoils.
And either we channel it, or Vox's populism capitalizes on it, which would be much worse."
Leaders and former leaders of the PP consulted affirm that for a few weeks they have been stopped in the street to ask them to be tougher with the Government.
“You go into a bar and they call you soft for not giving them more cane,” explains a regional leader.
“That, before, Vox voters did, but now our lifelong voters do it too, the classic PP voter.”
The political storm generated by the energy saving decree of the central Executive enters fully into this change in strategy.
"Isabel [Díaz Ayuso] came out like a lioness because she already has that character of Pedro Sánchez as a counterweight," says a PP baron.
“On the other hand, they left it on a plate, because the Government was very unintelligent and instead of involving the autonomous communities, that is, of sharing the burdens and making us complicit in measures that could be unpopular, it ignored the governments. autonomous and now pay only the duck ”.
"We didn't expect," adds another popular leader, "that the reaction on the street was going to be so strong: people have gotten angry and take the decree as a joke, which we don't like either, because it's not good for anyone." .
This explains, affirm the consulted leaders, that the general coordinator of the party adopted a position very similar to that of Ayuso despite the fact that the majority of the autonomous governments of the PP had opted for a lower profile in opposition to the government decree and despite who viewed with suspicion the "overreacting" of the Madrid president, threatening with refusal.
The day after the “Madrid does not turn off” tweet, Elías Bendodo declared that the autonomous communities were free to decide whether or not to comply with the law, and this week Miguel Tellado, deputy secretary of territorial policy, has spoken of “energy rationing card” .
This new electoral analysis of the context also explains that when the Government rectifies and agrees that the ministers of Ecological Transition and Industry meet last Monday with the regional councilors instead of the meeting initially planned between general directors, the PP ups the ante and claims a conference of presidents with Pedro Sánchez;
And that when this is not announced immediately, the popular question their legitimacy as chief executive.
"If 10 autonomous communities have to force him to do so, it is because Spain has ceased to have a legitimate president to head the government," said Tellado, Feijóo's confidant, who, in his first speech as opposition leader, the Last April, he said: "I have come to win the president, not to insult him."
The polls corroborate the growing discontent with the Government, whose margin for political initiative, that is, to follow the planned legislative calendar, fulfill electoral promises and strengthen its electorate, has been reduced by an accumulation of unforeseen events: from the coronavirus crisis to the war in Ukraine through the eruption of the Palma volcano.
The pandemic, says the political scientist Pablo Simón, did not take a heavy toll on him, “but the skyrocketing inflation and the increase in energy prices have accelerated wear and tear.”
"Podemos is in a recycling process that means that its electorate is, for the moment, little mobilized, and the PSOE is beginning to leak towards the PP for the first time."
The argument of the popular, he adds, "has not changed: we are not seeing that there are more agreements with the Government than with the previous team,
He does not moderate in some of his postulates despite what he said, but he puts the emphasis on other issues.
We are fundamentally talking about the economy and the PP continuously emphasizes that the Government is not only radical, but bad manager, and that generates a transversal erosion among voters who are not necessarily very ideological.
In practice, after the noise generated and the threats of disobedience, all the PP communities, including the one led by Díaz Ayuso, assure that they will comply with the energy saving plan.
They admit, however, that they have few means to guarantee that this is the case, as they reminded the ministers Ribera and Maroto on Monday, counselors of the autonomous governments of the PP and also of the PSOE, the former from criticism, and the latter, from concern .
Nor does it seem, today, that the judicial front is going to leave Madrid.
The content of the decree has been distorted these days, with opposition leaders rejecting measures that are either not included or have been in force since 2009. But the PP believes it has won the story in this battle and has done so by raising the strategy several decibels Communication.
They argue that "the lack of political waist" of the Executive in this matter has also bothered his investiture partners;
They recognize that Ayuso has returned to "stir up the hornet's nest", and set the agenda "taking advantage of Feijóo's vacations" -she is also on these days off-, but they believe that, on this occasion, following the hard line was more profitable.
Citizen anger, add the sources consulted, "is going to go further."
"Now we are in August and the latest information goes more unnoticed, but from September, with the rate hike and everything that comes, that general anger will increase," says a regional baron.
From then on, they point out, the challenge will be "not to go too far" in the criticism to maintain the image of "state party" and "management alternative", but not to lose "the connection with the street" so that That discontent is not capitalized on by the first great split of the PP ideologues: Vox.
Now, says the political scientist Pablo Simón, the popular have chosen to "ignore" the extreme right "after their puncture of expectations in the Andalusians and present themselves as a good manager so that people perceive that they can be better when it comes to leading the crisis".
If the economic situation worsens, PP leaders believe that the Government "can take a hit in the regional elections in May and not reach the general elections in December."
Miguel Tellado declared this Thursday, enthusiastically: “We have been leading a wave of illusion.
We are convinced that this wave will reach all of Spain, including the Basque Country”, where he admitted that today they have “a testimonial role”.
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