Enrique López, rise and fall of the strong man of Díaz Ayuso in the government of Madrid

The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Interior of the Community of Madrid, Enrique López, during a plenary session in the Madrid Assembly, on February 9. Fernando Sánchez - Europa Press (Europa Press)

Enrique López's political career derailed on a specific and tragic day for his interests.

February 18, 2022. The government of the Community of Madrid convenes a press conference to defend the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in the face of the controversy generated because her brother has collected more than 55,000 euros from the Priviet company for providing masks to comply with a 1.5 million contract signed with the Administration chaired by his sister.

López, the head of Health, Enrique Ruiz-Escudero, and the head of Economy and Finance, Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, must attend the appointment.

But the former magistrate of the Constitutional Court does not appear.

He has an immovable prior commitment, they defend his team,

as if there were something more important for the members of the Madrid government than defending the political survival of their leader.

Although a year later López is still in the executive, and hopes to finish the legislature, his political career together with Ayuso ends that same day.

That is why he has just resigned from the PP affiliation to be able to return to the judiciary if he does not repeat as counselor after the May 28 elections.

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Enrique López prepares to leave the Government of Díaz Ayuso in Madrid

"From that moment, from that press conference, there is no relationship," says a source familiar with the facts.

“Pablo Casado, a president who knows little about things, impressed by his career as a judge, and who believes that someone responsible must be inoculated in the Community government, who controls, to be It is possible to tell him what Ayuso is doing, and be his possible substitute ”, he continues.

"At first, they get along well, because it gives the president security," he adds about the role that this jurist has played in the 12 judicial appeals that Madrid has registered against the State in its policy of confrontation with the central government of Pedro Sánchez. .

"But then comes that press conference, and it's all over," he continues.

And he finishes: “That's why he leaves five minutes before they kick him out.

And without telling her first.

Because the one who notifies first is the national leadership ”.

López emphasizes that his departure occurs after a meeting with the regional president, who is informed of everything.

However, neither of the two protagonists specifies when it occurred, or where.

The only sure thing is that the civil war that breaks out in the PP as a result of the case of the president's brother, and in which Ayuso's version ends up prevailing, cuts off López's wings.

The change in the national leadership, with the departure of Casado and the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leaves the former magistrate an orphan.

Since then, López has met on different occasions with Esteban González Pons, one of the new leader's strong men, who even goes to his office for those appointments.

But the terms of the relationship are clear.

It is not equal.

López, brand new Secretary of Justice with Casado, is now a subordinate.

"They meet as often as González Pons needs," explains, without palliatives, a source from the national leadership of the PP about the leader's contacts with the former Constitutional magistrate.

At no time is it put on the table that López return to the national Justice Secretariat, as he did with Casado, according to this interlocutor who has the confidence of Núñez Feijóo.

That position is not a minor matter: he points to the occupant of it as a hypothetical Minister of Justice of a next PP government.

In addition, this is not the only sign that the relationship between the two parties is no longer the same as in Casado's time.

There is a worse one for the interests of López.

Also with date and time.

The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Gabriel Luengas (Europa Press)

June 15, 2022. Díaz Ayuso convenes a press conference to announce that he has appointed Enrique Ossorio as vice president of the regional government.

That means displacing López as de facto

in the government.

And something else.

"There are those who think that he was in the government or to inherit (the presidency of Madrid) or to be a minister," says a popular source.

"But that day it is verified by decree that he will not replace Ayuso, even temporarily, because there is a pregnancy, a broken leg or an international trip," he adds about a responsibility that fell until then on the Minister of the Presidency, since there had not been vice president.

Now López has open the doors of a return to the judiciary, which he defends ("a judge who has exercised political work may not be promoted for five years for any discretionary appointment and must abstain in all those matters that affect the political party that appointed him ”, recalled the judge in the Assembly) or to a private office that can exploit the experience acquired as a judge and the contacts and knowledge gained during his time in the Administration.

His foreseeable departure from politics advances the changes that Ayuso will make in his government in the event that he wins the regional elections on May 28.

Carlos García Pache, Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, and a close friend of the regional president, is emerging as a substitute for David Pérez at the head of that ministry.

The future of Carlos Izquierdo, who did not support Díaz Ayuso in his conflict with Casado, is also questionable, like that of Enrique Ruiz-Escudero, whom the PP is evaluating as a possible candidate in Pozuelo de Alarcón.

In the meetings of the conservative party there is even speculation about the possibility that Javier Fernández Lasquetty, all-powerful Minister of Economy and Finance, chooses to enlist in the Madrid City Council.

Easier is the continuity of Ossorio, the right hand of Díaz Ayuso;

the Minister of the Environment, Housing and Agriculture, Paloma Martín, whom Díaz Ayuso holds in high esteem;

or Marta Rivera de la Cruz, head of Culture, who took the step of leaving Ciudadanos after the 2021 elections.

"To form a government, you first have to win the elections," excuses a source who has the confidence of Díaz Ayuso, who wants to focus the coming months on his electoral offer and not on the internal power struggles in the PP.

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