José Luis Martínez-Almeida enters the main building of Puerta del Sol. It is 11:15 on Friday.
The president Isabel Díaz Ayuso summons the mayor of Madrid in a room of the building of the presidency of the Community.
Alfonso Serrano, the general secretary of the popular in the region and the executing arm of the Madrid president for internal affairs, is also waiting for you here.
Serrano, with whom Almeida is in very good harmony, had been speaking with the mayor a few days ago:
"Bring yourself a proposal on Friday and we'll adjust it."
The meeting of the three heavyweights of the PP in Madrid had nothing to do with the municipal and regional obstacles.
It was actually time to drop the names of colleagues on the table.
It was also the day to close the electoral list of the popular to the City Council of the capital.
Or put another way: time to settle some pending accounts.
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Ayuso is preparing to take control of the PP in the City Hall and is considering sending two of his advisers with Almeida
During the last two weeks, the closest team that surrounds the mayor of the capital, in addition to his hard core of trust in the Cibeles palace, formed by the mayor Inmaculada Sanz and the councilor Borja Carabante, —two councilors who have offices located a few stairs from Almeida's—had kept a scrupulous silence before the press and, above all, before their colleagues.
It was an internal order.
No leaks.
They were the first to see the first draft of the mayor's list.
Hermeticism had fully established itself in the Cibeles palace.
So much so that, according to several of the PP councilors by phone, the 15 councilors barely spoke in the internal WhatsApp group: "The 15 magnificent".
The nervousness of many made them ask even the mayor's trusted circle: "Do you know something?"
The answer, of course, was always the same:
-Nothing.
72 hours after the meeting between Almeida and Ayuso, a PP mayor summed up the final result over the phone: "That WhatsApp group of the 15 magnificent is already history."
However, to understand how a list of the PP to the City Council of the capital of Spain is created, you have to travel back four weeks.
According to popular sources and senior City Council officials, Almeida had lunch with a party heavyweight at the end of March in a restaurant in the capital.
The mayor wanted to know how he could incorporate the greatest number of his "magnificent" councilors in a two-way negotiation, even more so with Ayuso's encouragement on the back of his neck.
After all, and as a summary of various PP charges, Almeida is not a man who usually attends party meetings.
"Let's just say he doesn't do well in internal battles,"
explains a voice with a lot of weight in the Madrid PP.
At that meal, the popular high office gave Almeida some key advice that he took to the letter at the meeting between Ayuso and Serrano in Puerta del Sol:
"As long as your people are at starting points, forget about the numbers."
Almeida then appeared last Friday at Puerta del Sol with that phrase between his eyebrows.
The negotiation begins.
He puts his list on the table.
Ayuso reminds him that, from there, there must be a renewal percentage, because that had been his internal message a few days before.
The list begins to change.
Some councilors begin to be displaced.
The president and Serrano also add their own names to the mayor's list: Marta Rivera de la Cruz, former Minister of Citizens and today of Culture, Tourism and Sports in the region, and Carlos Izquierdo, Minister of Local Administration and digitalization.
Almeida accepts without question.
The directors, according to a close associate of the president, too.
Ayuso then gets up from the meeting.
He has an act in the Paseo de la Castellana with a foundation.
The negotiation, yes, is very advanced.
Of Almeida's “magnificent 15”, 11 are already in starting positions: from 1 to 20. But the second part of the negotiation was missing.
From 20 to 30, and on.
A razor edge stripe.
Only the best surveys published to date suggest that Almeida would achieve 26 and 27 councilors, on the verge of an absolute majority (29).
Placing a councilor there implies being on the verge of death in politics.
The signings of Citizens
Serrano and Almeida extend the meeting another half hour.
The signings of the two Ciudadanos councilors in the City Council, Ángel Niño and José Aniorte, which EL PAÍS revealed on April 4, enter positions 25 and 31, respectively.
Aniorte stays out of the starting positions.
The list dances.
In the first draft and according to popular sources, he was ranked 24th.
"Unlike Niño," sums up a senior PP official in the region, "he did not know how to negotiate his position well with the PP of the Community."
Or put another way: with Ayuso.
In the meeting, and alone, Serrano and Almeida have already outlined the electoral list to almost 90%.
Of Almeida's “Magnificent 15”, only three have been left out of the top 30.
Here are two versions.
Some sources say that it is at the express request of Ayuso, who demanded that in the lists of the PP to the City Council there should not be any trace of councilors who had sympathized with the former president Pablo Casado, and other voices point out that these three councilors have been displaced because his work in the City Council during these four years has been questionable.
They are Blanca Pinedo, Francisco Javier Ramírez and Loreto Sordo.
After one in the afternoon, Almeida finally leaves the meeting with Serrano with only one councilor of the "magnificent 15" to place, Andrea Levy.
Both Ayuso, Almeida and Serrano give Levy, who was number two on the 2019 lists, the privilege of choosing whether she wants to go to the regional Assembly or continue on the City Council.
Levy, after meditating on it this weekend, has chosen to continue in the City Council with position number 13. "Doing nothing is sometimes doing a lot," she herself recounted by phone.
"That phrase of Rajoy is the one that I have applied these days at home to think about my future," she ironically.
Levy and the rest of the 14 “magnificent” councilors found out on Friday afternoon that they were on the list after a call from Almeida after eight in the evening.
Some, as they point out to EL PAÍS, this is the conversation with the mayor:
"You're on the list.
"What position am I in?"
"No, I'm not going to tell you the position.
The anxiety to know the number was such that some even began to call each other.
They needed to know the number.
Above all, if they were behind or in front of number 30, the strip of political survival.
Almeida only granted this privilege to two of them: the two Ciudadanos councilors that he has incorporated into his lists.
He told Aniorte that his position was 31, on Friday, and Niño, 25, on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, and on the horn, Ayuso decides to place his Transport adviser, David Pérez, on Almeida's list, which he accepts without hesitation.
Ayuso carried out his mission: to erase any trace of Pablo Casado in the Community.
And, in any case, in the mayor's team.
The Madrid councilor, yes, reminds the two Ciudadanos councilors that they must go to sign their position in the PP at the party's national headquarters, on Génova street, and before Sunday.
What's more, he expressly recommends that they go on Sunday morning:
—Listen to me.
This is how you avoid the press.
The new signings of the PP come together around 10.15.
There are no cameras or photographers.
Upon arrival, according to a popular source who was present, they went up to a room on the first floor.
Here they presented their ID and signed their entry into the PP.
His door slammed to Begoña Villacís.
His final goodbye to Ciudadanos.
And a popular worker, seeing them, released them:
"Good luck, congratulations!"
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