He was a feared general secretary of the PP and with many internal enemies, but Teodoro García Egea feels loved and assures that on Thursday, when he announced that he was resigning from the seat a year after his resignation as number two in the party, he did not stop receiving messages from support from within the training.
“I have felt super well treated.
When I go to the places, to the territories, exactly the same.
People keep calling me and I have had many calls and messages.
I feel loved by the party, which I am grateful for, ”Pablo Casado's lieutenant told EL PAÍS just a few hours after his surprise appearance to announce his departure.
He has been walking around Madrid all Thursday, “traveling about 12 or 13 kilometers”, while answering the phone, which fumes from his departure.
García Egea has renounced his deputy act to dedicate himself one hundred and one hundred to professional activity in the world of cryptocurrencies, in which he has specialized after the loss of internal power.
During the conversation, he explains that he does not want to remove the issues of the past, but he does reaffirm how he acted in his time as Secretary General, despite the fact that his complaint against Isabel Díaz Ayuso for the collection of his brother in the middle of the pandemic ended up costing him the post.
"I do not regret anything.
The only thing I could have regretted is not being faithful to my principles, and that has not happened, ”he settles.
but it does reaffirm how he acted in his time as secretary general, despite the fact that his complaint against Isabel Díaz Ayuso for the collection of his brother in the middle of the pandemic ended up costing him the position.
"I do not regret anything.
The only thing I could have regretted is not being faithful to my principles, and that has not happened ”, he ditch.
but it does reaffirm how he acted in his time as secretary general, despite the fact that his complaint against Isabel Díaz Ayuso for the collection of his brother in the middle of the pandemic ended up costing him the position.
"I do not regret anything.
The only thing I could have regretted is not being faithful to my principles, and that has not happened ”, he ditch.
García Egea plays with his silences and enjoys leaving questions in the air.
Like the possible return of him to politics in the future, which he does not rule out.
Without having turned 40 yet - he is 38 - he believes that he has time to return if he wanted to, taking the example of the candidate that Vox has presented in the motion of no confidence, 89 years old.
And with this he ironically: "Today I am going to focus on my professional activity, but looking at [Ramón] Tamames, anything is possible."
Teodoro García Egea announced on Thursday that he was resigning from his seat in Congress.
Andrea Comas
About to be one year after the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the presidency of the PP after the fall of Pablo Casado, his main squire has announced that he is leaving his seat in Congress, although he will maintain his membership in the PP.
The announcement came hours after presenting his new book,
Cryptoeconomics, in Madrid.
Beyond bitcoin: opportunities of the new financial system
, accompanied by the ex-minister of the PP Manuel Pimentel.
“The decision to leave is part of a process of personal reflection.
Some ask me why now, and others tell me why I don't exhaust the legislature.
But the decision can only be made by yourself.
It is thoughtful and from the conviction that if you can be 100% in a place, then you are, and if not, a new stage has to be opened ”, he explains.
“Except for moments as Secretary General, I have always had one foot in the energy sector.
I did my electoral thesis on artificial intelligence while I was in the seat.
And I read it on the day of the start of the 2015 campaign where I presented myself as number one”, recalls García Egea.
It escapes no one in the PP that Casado's former number two was an uncomfortable figure for Feijóo, although the popular leader granted him the presidency of the Congressional Road Safety Commission after his resignation, a position of little political importance, but which gives the right to a supplement in the remuneration of deputy.
García Egea denies that his departure has to do with the absence of a personal future in Feijóo's PP.
“They have always treated me phenomenally.
I have had dialogue with everyone, from the president to the deputy secretaries.
It has been something that I have communicated out of conviction, that is why it has surprised so much.
Everyone saw that there was no problem at the moment.
No one expected this news either inside or outside.
That is proof that everyone had assumed that I was one of them”.
More information
Teodoro García Egea abandons his seat in Congress a year after the fall of Casado
The former secretary general had informed Feijóo of his resignation in a discreet meeting a few days ago, after the PP leader's lunch with his predecessor, Pablo Casado, was reported by EL PAÍS.
The president of the popular did not try to convince him to reconsider his decision, according to sources familiar with the conversation.
García Egea also spoke with Casado to inform him of his departure.
With the ex-leader of the PP, ousted by the party, he speaks frequently.
“He is a very valuable person who has already demonstrated his worth in the private sector.
I am sure that he will succeed in what he sets out to do ”, he assures.
Do you think the party should rehabilitate him politically?
“I, as a former deputy, am one more affiliate.
It is evident that Casado is a former president of the party who recently had lunch with the national president.
I don't see anything remarkable.
García Egea wants to maintain a thick silence about the internal war that ended up unseating him and the former president of the PP command post, but he does reaffirm everything he did at that stage.
“I have always been true to my principles and to what I believe in, and therefore, when principles guide your actions, you have to sleep and feel at peace.
That is very important, ”he underlines.
“Sometimes, when you stand firm on some issues, everything comes at a cost.
The most important thing is to do it out of conviction, ”he remarks in a veiled reference to the conflict with the president of the Community of Madrid, about whom he does not want to say an explicit word.
But between the lines one reads that, despite how everything ended,
He continues to think that he and Casado did the right thing by denouncing that the brother of the Madrid leader charged the Government of Madrid for the sale of masks in the midst of a pandemic.
That cost them both their political careers, although for many in the PP it was only the last straw for an internal malaise that had been brewing due to their attempt to control the party with an iron fist.
"Exceptional Candidates"
All in all, García Egea feels more proud of his time in the general secretariat "of the negotiation of the regional and municipal pacts, which were a shock to the party at a very difficult time."
“We lost everywhere and ruled most of the places,” he recalls.
Also "to select some exceptional candidates that the new leadership has now maintained", he points out about several of the popular barons who are now running for the elections on May 28.
His departure from Congress, just a few days before the debate on Vox's second motion of no confidence, has fueled speculation about his political discrepancies with the Feijóo leadership, taking into account that he was one of the architects of the vote against the first initiative of the ultras - the PP has now announced that it will abstain.
García Egea avoids revealing his opinion on this point - "I am a member, and the same respect that I asked for as general secretary is what I show with the party's decisions", he remarks -, but at the same time he leaves open what he would have voted in Vox's motion in case of having continued as a deputy.
"It is a hypothesis that is not going to occur," he answers laconic.
He prefers to play again with silences and leave questions in the air, also in his political march.
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