The president of the Madrid Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Ana Escobar (EFE)
The president of the PP in Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is designing an electoral list full of changes for the May 28 elections that has triggered the nerves of the group of parliamentarians who finished the legislature in the regional Assembly.
After reaching the leadership of the autonomous organization in May 2022, the also autonomous president faces the preparation of her next team of deputies with all the power in her hands and without interference from the national leadership of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
This has put the remaining representatives in Parliament close to the former national leader, Pablo Casado, on alert, who fear for his future after seeing that they did not repeat mayoral candidates linked to the ousted leader.
As a source of the highest confidence of the regional leader said: “We are obliged to renew.
Candidates for mayors will not repeat”.
If followed to the letter, this guideline would imply that in 2023 a dozen prominent names from the 2021 list who ended up becoming deputies at some point in the legislature that has now ended will not repeat.
In the PP, however, prudence prevails, since what is valid today may change tomorrow, as stressed by an interlocutor who dispatches daily with Díaz Ayuso in reference to the continuity in the Assembly of those potentially affected by the decision to exclude to the mayors: Almudena Negro (candidate for mayor of Torrelodones);
Pigeon Tejero (Pozuelo);
Noelia Núñez (Fuenlabrada);
Alberto Escribano (Arganda del Rey);
Manuel Bautista (Mostoles);
Alejandra Serrano (San Fernando de Henares);
Judit Piquet (Alcalá de Henares);
Janette Novo (Rivas Vaciamadrid);
In addition, the continuity of a history of the conservative party, the former president of the Assembly Paloma Adrados, who is also a senator by regional designation and has just overcome a stroke, is also on the air.
On her, in principle inclined not to continue, according to a popular source, her decision will depend.
Manuel Bautista, candidate for the Popular Party for Mayor of Móstoles, and the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero. PP MÓSTOLES (PP MÓSTOLES)
The PP assumes for sure that among the five Madrid regional representatives of the conservatives in the Senate there will also be renewal, since a space must be made for Enrique Ruiz Escudero as a senator (he will cease to be Minister of Health) and it is foreseeable that he will lose that appetizing seat Ana Camins, former secretary general of the PP of Madrid with Casado, whose chief of staff, Diego Sanjuanbenito, also enlisted in the Assembly in the last legislature.
For the same reason, his proximity to the former president, the future of three councilors who were on the 2021 electoral list and did not openly position themselves in favor of Díaz Ayuso in the PP civil war is up in the air: Enrique López ( Presidency, Justice and Interior), Carlos Izquierdo (Local Administration and Digitization) and David Pérez (Transport and Infrastructure).
This is how the PP deputies in the Assembly live the moment.
"The truth is that there are a lot of nervous people," admits a conservative representative.
"There is a sepulchral silence with the subject", a photograph about the secrecy with which the Ayuso team is handling the situation, which has thus tried to keep the entire parliamentary group at its maximum performance until the last day of the legislature.
"The national leadership is asking if something is already known about the escabechina."
And this is how a source close to the preparation of the PP lists in Madrid describes the situation: "In the Assembly there is going to be a good cleanup."
The tension also reaches the Government, where the current councilors know that their inclusion on the list does not imply repeating in government office, and that having responsibilities in the Executive again would mean having to leave the seat in the Assembly.
This is how Ayuso wants it, who is molding the Madrid PP in his image and likeness.
In the event that he maintains power, and advocates appointing deputies as advisers, the list will run and applicants who had not obtained it in the first instance will access the seat.
"To be in the Government, the majority [of counselors] are going to have to leave the minutes," said the regional president this March.
"I would like that, in most cases, the directors were not deputies."
Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Toni Cantó in 2021.Samuel Sánchez
The last time that Ayuso faced the preparation of his electoral lists, a large storm broke out in the PP.
Tradition dictates that the team that goes to the Assembly is decided equally between the national leadership, the regional government and the regional government (which the conservatives have occupied without interruption since 1995).
But Díaz Ayuso found that Casado forced him to enlist Toni Cantó, a politician who came from UPyD and Cs, and Agustín Conde, former Secretary of State linked to María Dolores de Cospedal.
Without disagreeing with the substance of the matter, the president's team did not like the forms and that they were broadcast in public as Genoa signings.
The tension ran through the entire PP, in a prelude to the civil war that would open months later, and that would end the leadership of Casado.
"I have the obligation to reform my house, make way for new generations, renew the organization," the regional president now warns.
What the PP still does not clarify is whether they will repeat the two deputies who left Ciudadanos in 2021 to support Díaz Ayuso after breaking the coalition government that he had formed with Ignacio Aguado's party: Sergio Brabezo and Marta Marbán.
Nor what will happen to the electoral list of the capital, where the candidate, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, weakened after the departure of Casado, only has one thing assured: he will have to do what Díaz Ayuso orders, which will foreseeably dilute part of the team trustee of the councilor to place like-minded politicians in the City Council.
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