The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, have started this Monday the pre-campaign for the elections on May 28, launching themselves to reconquer the PP voters who have gone to Vox .
"I invite you to trust this project," said the regional leader, who has opted for a program full of nods to the extreme right to try to absorb the votes of the ultra party and thus achieve an absolute majority.
"If there is something that those of us who are in the reformist center should not neglect, it is the battle of ideas (...) in the face of the temptation of other ideologies [in reference to Vox]", the leader of the party endorsed game,
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"I want to address the Vox voters who left the PP because they did not feel that the PP was in charge of the great debates, beyond good management," Ayuso began his speech during an informative breakfast organized by the Nueva Economía Fórum.
"The Government in Madrid has shown two things: first, that our project has fought all the battles and has taken the political initiative in everything important," he continued.
“And we have done it by getting the when, where and how right.
Because if not, reason ends up losing, citizens become disillusioned, and the enemies of Spain, of the family and of freedom become stronger ”, he added.
"To many Vox voters, who know like me that either Sánchez or Spain, who know that we are right, I invite you to be effective with this project," he concluded, referring to the fact that the PP has governed Madrid since 1995 since he wants to avoid a coalition government like that of Castilla y León.
However, the popular candidate has not limited herself to rhetorical references on issues important to far-right voters, such as the family or the unity of Spain.
Quite the opposite.
The regional leader has also promised to carry out a reduction of half a point in all the sections of the IRPF if she governs after 28-M, which would have a cost of 334 million euros and would increase the bill of tax revenues to which the PP in the region since 2004 above 60,000 million euros.
The winks will continue to occur in the following weeks, with measures to contain spending by the Administration, and in education.
"[The president] does something as exotic as govern," Núñez Feijóo said in a meeting attended by the current PP staff ―with the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez Almeida;
or the president of Galicia, Alfonso Rueda― and from the past ―with the former regional president Esperanza Aguirre―.
“She has a recognizable leadership, but also a concrete balance that in no context justifies the institutional siege she has suffered.
It is leadership with results ”, he has endorsed.
@nunezfeijoo points out in the Europe Forum that @Idiazayuso has a recognizable leadership pic.twitter.com/62vourFg9v
— New Economy Forum (@NewEconomyForum) April 10, 2023
And he has asked, again in reference to Vox voters and the need for them to return to the PP: “The best path is strong governments, sufficient majorities, presidents who can appoint and dismiss freely, that is, the opposite of the tripartite government [by Pedro Sánchez]”.
That the president of the PP has endorsed "the ideas and facts" with which Ayuso governs marks a turning point in the PP's strategy.
In May 2022, the two politicians met at the congress that elevated the regional leader to the presidency of the party in Madrid.
That meeting photographed a Feijóo focused on defending his profile as a manager, who allowed Ayuso to take the lead ideologically.
Since then, the coexistence between moderates and conservatives has found moments of conflict in matters such as abortion, the negotiation with the PSOE to renew the General Council of the Judiciary, or the energy decree.
Now, the proximity of the elections changes everything.
You have to add votes and Ayuso's path has already proven successful.
On the one hand, criticism of President Pedro Sánchez and the Government of Spain - he has described Yolanda Díaz as "the most ineffective vice president in the history of Spain" -.
On the other, ideology and constant communication.
The former president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, during the informative breakfast on Monday. JJ Guillén (EFE)
"If I pay attention to what is said, I am here to present the greatest exponent of one of the two souls of the party", Feijóo started, trying to use irony to bury the discrepancies that he has had over time with Ayuso.
"She is a brave woman," he stressed.
"She successfully fights against clichés and prejudices on a double front: that of ideas and facts."
Since March 2021, when Ayuso brought forward the regional elections in Madrid, the PP has focused its efforts on absorbing the vote that left the conservative acronym to opt for Ciudadanos.
The culminating work of this strategy is the absolute majority achieved by Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla in Andalusia in 2022. With that chapter practically closed, the PP now sets its sights on Vox voters.
But the challenge is huge for conservatives.
For example, in Madrid the extreme right has shown a great capacity for resistance: in 2021, when Ayuso was at his best, Vox managed to improve his result in the 2019 elections, and became key to the governability of the region.
In the disagreements that this situation of dependency has caused are the seeds of the total campaign undertaken by the PP to try to attract the vote of Vox.
First, with Ayuso, in Madrid.
And then, throughout Spain, with Feijóo leaning on the Madrid baroness.
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