The reasons and risks of Borja Sémper's return to "mud"

“If you continue this policy of saying the loudest thing;

If reactionary populism drags the rest of us down, I don't paint anything in politics.

I won't feel useful.

In the mud, the populist always wins”, declared Borja Sémper in an interview in EL PAÍS in January 2019. A year later he abandoned it, convinced that the activity to which he had dedicated almost 30 years of his life, most of them putting her in danger threatened by ETA, she had definitively "discredited" herself.

Asked about those words when announcing his appointment as campaign spokesman and member of the PP management committee on Monday, Sémper admitted that this climate had worsened, but explained that Alberto Núñez Feijóo had asked him to provide "moderation and centrality" to the party, and that after thinking about it a lot, he had convinced himself that he should “get wet”.

PP sources affirm that there will be "a trickle" of incorporations of moderate profiles, former Sorayistas who were scalded in the time of Pablo Casado, especially when drawing up the lists for the December general elections.

Alfonso Alonso, who left politics a month after Sémper, denies, for the moment, his return.

Sémper (Irun, Gipuzkoa, 47 years old) did not fit in with Casado's PP, who tried to stop the flight of votes to Vox by imitating the ultra-split embodied by Santiago Abascal, that is, leaning to the right.

The signings of Mariano Rajoy's successor, such as that of Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, whom the Basque politician publicly confronted after she accused them of being "lukewarm" — "while some walked on soft carpets, others risked our lives" — they were going in another direction.

Time proved Sémper right.

The spokesperson in Congress was dismissed in August 2020 and Casado, the first leader of the party elected in primaries, sacrificed for his own in February 2022, when he had already embarked on another life away from politics, at the Ernst & Young consultancy .

His profile did fit like a glove in the banner of moderation and centrality in which Feijóo wrapped himself upon his arrival as the PP presidency — "I am not here to insult Pedro Sánchez, I am here to beat him";

“We have to get Spanish politics out of confrontation and permanent hyperbole…” —, but he had a hard time convincing Sémper to abandon “a peaceful life, far from the mud”.

The Basque politician has acknowledged that he has spoken "a lot and about many things" with the former Galician president in the last year.

It was at Christmas time that he told Ernst & Young of his decision to return to politics.

but it was difficult to convince Sémper to abandon “a peaceful life, away from the mud”.

The Basque politician has acknowledged that he has spoken "a lot and about many things" with the former Galician president in the last year.

It was at Christmas time that he told Ernst & Young of his decision to return to politics.

but it was difficult to convince Sémper to abandon “a peaceful life, away from the mud”.

The Basque politician has acknowledged that he has spoken "a lot and about many things" with the former Galician president in the last year.

It was at Christmas time that he told Ernst & Young of his decision to return to politics.

In those months of conversations, Feijóo has been eroding, with words and deeds, the image of a moderate manager that he had built in the years of absolute majority in Galicia and as a baron not aligned with Casado's strategy.

He allowed Vox to enter an autonomous government for the first time by agreeing with the PP in Castilla y León;

He has compared Pedro Sánchez to a dictator and has recovered ETA in the dialectic of the opposition, something that has always annoyed Sémper — “continuing to talk so much about ETA is like forgetting that we defeated it” —.

Time has also shown that some of his predecessor's problems were hereditary, such as what in PP circles they call "ayusodependencia", alluding to the power of the Madrid president to set the tone and discourse of the opposition party.

Semper,

But returning to the mud entails its dangers and Sémper himself predicts “some blow”.

The first risk is becoming a kind of alibi for moderation in a party that has already received it with a controversy: the incendiary tweet from the general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, responding in these terms to Pedro Sánchez's message condemning the assault in Brazil : "With you, in Spain this is now a simple public disorder."

Asked about this in his first public appearance as a PP campaign spokesperson, Sémper insisted that the entire party, "from the president, the general secretary and down to the last mayor", supports "the legally established government in Brazil".

He also did not want to fall into the trap set by other colleagues by linking him to the

: "There is no possible comparison."

The spokesman for the Basque Parliament (2005-2020) and candidate for mayor of San Sebastián in 2019 returns to politics in an election year, with the polls rising for the PP, —the last barometer of 40dB.

for EL PAÍS he points to a rise of 33 seats compared to his 2019 results—, and the possibility of being a minister.

But according to all the polls, the popular ones would need the support of Vox, a party that "does not represent" what Sémper wants for the country, despite his "bomb-proof" personal relationship with Santiago Abascal, whom he has known since he was 17 years.

When criticism arises, political leaders from different formations often repeat that parties are "not sects" and that debate is useful and necessary, but in practice discipline often prevails.

Feijóo's campaign team has just incorporated moderate and Sorayista profiles, such as Íñigo de la Serna and Sémper himself, but also others from the hard wing, such as Pilar Marcos.

Time will tell if the Basque, who has written several books of poetry, returns to being the loose verse of the PP.

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