Feijóo signs the former leader of Citizens Luis Garicano for the foundation of the PP

The former leader of CS Luis Garicano, in an interview with EL PAÍS. Eulogio Martin Castellanos

The PP has sought to give a last blow to Citizens with the signing of who was one of its mainstays, the economist Luis Garicano, who will join the new foundation of the popular, Reformismo21. Alberto Núñez Feijóo had long courted the former leader of CS, who since his resignation in July 2022 worked as a professor at Boston University (USA), but it has not been until now, at a key moment, when he has achieved his incorporation into the popular think tank. The movement, advanced by ABC and confirmed by EL PAÍS by sources of the PP leadership, underpins the message of the "useful vote" around its brand in which the popular want to insist this last week of the campaign towards 28-M.

The signing of Garicano has been simmered and has been managed directly by the leader of the PP, according to sources of the popular dome. The economist, architect of the economic proposals of the first electoral programs of Citizens, renounced last year his act in the European Parliament and went to the United States. Since then he was focused on teaching and, although the PP had tested him months ago, he wanted to wait until he had finished his academic commitments.

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Garicano joins the renewed foundation of the PP, Reformismo21, which Feijóo launched in March of this year under the presidency of Pablo Vázquez, economist and former director of Renfe. The leader of the PP then presented the team of this think tank – which coexists with FAES, the foundation of the PP orbit led by former president José María Aznar – as the germ of a future government of his party. "I do not hide from you that my ultimate goal is to condense everything that comes out of this foundation into a project for a hypothetical government. I want my government to be able to work from the first minute," Feijóo said when he announced its launch.

In the team there are former ministers such as Fátima Báñez, Ramón Escolano and Josep Piqué, as well as coach Toni Nadal, sports technical director of the Rafa Nadal Academy and coach for many years of the world tennis star; or the president of the civil organization Concordia Cívica, Teresa Freixes. To date the foundation has not made public any proposal or activity, but the PP maintains that it is producing papers for the party.

When he announced the staff of his foundation, Feijóo boasted that he had not asked any of them to join the PP, because their objective is a project of broad ideology around liberalism. Operation Garicano underpins this attempt by the PP leader to project himself as a moderate candidate who can represent all the ideas that fit from the center to the right. "Thanks to Luis Garicano for joining Reformismo21 and helping to generate the projects that Spain needs to get out of stagnation," Feijóo celebrated on Monday on his Twitter account to welcome the economist. "Setting up a project at the height of the country requires having the best, with the sole criterion of preparation and vocation of public service."

With the signing, the PP also wants to give a final blow to Ciudadanos, a party that is dying but whose percentages of vote, although residual, can be decisive for the right to win or lose governments on May 28. The PP looks closely at the example of the Valencian Community, where polls attribute to CS only 2% of the vote, which could be decisive to snatch the Government from Ximo Puig. The management of Feijóo has already incorporated some 200 former leaders of CS. The PP also tried to sign the deputy mayor of Madrid Begoña Villacís in the run-up to the electoral campaign, but the movement ended up frustrated by the opposition of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.