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The PP and Vox start the pre-campaign waging the first pulse on their territorial pacts

2023-06-02T10:52:01.619Z

Highlights: Vox warns the PP that its ideal model is that of Castilla y León, where PP and Vox share a government. The popular are already entangled with Vox about whether or not they will let them govern. The PP needs the ultras to abstain so that their investitures prosper in the Balearic Islands and Murcia, and to vote in favor in Extremadura, Valencian Community and Aragon. Their only red line, for now, is that they do not enter the PP governments.


Feijóo urges the ultras to let their candidates govern, but the far-right party requires the popular to sit down to negotiate and warns that its ideal model is that of Castilla y León


The plan begins to go awry. The intention of the PP was to kick forward and postpone until after the general elections of July 23 the post-electoral agreements with Vox, which has the key for the right to govern in five autonomous communities and in thirty provincial capitals and large cities. But neither the calendar allows it ―the town halls are constituted on June 17, unless there is any pending appeal, and the parliaments of some autonomies for which the PP needs Vox begin to form on the 23rd― nor does the political dynamics of the newly released pre-campaign favor it. The result is that the first pulse between the PP and Vox for the territorial pacts has already been made public, which the popular ones want to avoid, aware of the toxicity of their only potential allies. In Extremadura, one of the territories marked by this pulse, the first clashes have already manifested. The movements of the two formations anticipate a long tug of war that could be harmful to the electoral expectations of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who wants to present himself to the generals as a candidate who is not part of any bloc. But, even sooner than their adversaries expected, who intend to make these alliances one of their main weapons against the PP, the popular are already entangled with Vox about whether or not they will let them govern. And the ultras answer that free no.

Feijóo has chosen to start pressuring Vox to allow the investiture of its candidates without anything in return, almost as an order, with the sole motivation of dislodging the left. "If that force [Vox] wants to repeal Sanchismo, it is in a position to facilitate it," the PP leader urged Santiago Abascal's party on Thursday in an interview on Telecinco. The popular believe that their good results against the extreme right in the municipal and regional elections of May 28 – in which the PP achieved 31.53% of the votes, and Vox 7.19% – and, above all, the proximity of the generals, place the ultras in a very complicated position to oppose the PP candidates, Because they could accuse them of torpedoing the right and favoring the left to stay in power.

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Feijóo launched on Thursday the first argument of wear for those of Abascal, accusing them of having as their sole objective the armchairs. "If what [Vox] wants is a quota of power with ministries or ministries, that's something else. But let them say it. I hope that if in Valencia, in the Balearic Islands, the PP has won, that nobody interrupts what it has won at the polls, "said the popular leader who, however, does not close the door to talk to the far-right party. He knows he can't do it because he has the upper hand. The PP needs the ultras to abstain so that their investitures prosper in the Balearic Islands and Murcia, and to vote in favor in Extremadura, Valencian Community and Aragon. Their only red line, for now, is that they do not enter the PP governments.

01:17

Abascal warns the PP not to expect "gifts" from Vox or accept "blackmail"

Santiago Abascal and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros (right), at the national headquarters of Vox, on Monday. Photo: RICARDO RUBIO (EUROPA PRESS) | Video: EPV

Those in Abascal are aware that they hold the key and are also under pressure to prove useful to their voters. The risk is to become a crutch in exchange for nothing from the PP. That is why Feijóo's order has fallen on deaf ears with Vox, which insists that the PP will have to negotiate with them if it wants their votes. The parliamentary spokesman of the extreme right, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, made it clear on Thursday that they will not give their support for free: "In those places where the PP needs the votes of Vox, it will have to respect the voters of Vox. We are going to ask you to sit down and negotiate. Because they don't have an absolute majority almost anywhere. We again reach out to form governments in those places where Vox is in a position to form governments with the PP."

Vox warns the PP that its ideal model is that of Castilla y León, where PP and Vox share a coalition government, and that its red lines will not be the same in all territories. "They will be different depending on the respective percentage, the strength of the parties or the local needs of each of the regions, surely Murcia will not be the same as Valencia or the Balearic Islands," said the vice president of Political Action of Vox, Jorge Buxadé. The best result of Vox has been registered in Murcia (17% of the votes), but in this community the PP only lacks two seats for an absolute majority. More important is its contribution in the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Aragon, where it would contribute between 20% and 25% of the total seats of both, somewhat less than what Vox contributes to the coalition Executive of Castilla y León, where it has a vice presidency and three ministries.

Clash in Extremadura

The first clash on the ground has been unleashed in Extremadura, where the PP candidate, María Guardiola, assures that she will not govern with Vox and has told her party colleagues that she will not do so in any case. The strength with which Guardiola has stood before the ultras worries in the direction of the PP. They have surprised his first statements and it is feared that his lack of political seniority – he has not even completed his first year as a leader in that community – will lead him to lose the pulse with Vox. At the top it is not taken for granted that she will get the investiture, despite the fact that Feijóo called her "president" at the national board of directors on Tuesday. This Thursday, Guardiola claimed his autonomy with respect to Feijóo to handle as he considers the agreements: "I do not agree that anyone comes from Madrid to tell us what we have to do in our land."

The leader of the PP of Extremadura referred to some words of Feijóo in the morning on Telecinco that unleashed all kinds of speculation in that community. The PP leader was asked if he was still defending his proposal to let the most voted list govern, and he answered yes. Ana Rosa Quintana insisted then that this would mean letting the Extremaduran Government fall, because it was the PSOE that won the elections. To which Feijóo replied: "Yes, we would win a number of governments. But the PSOE has already told us that it will never govern with the Spanish right, so I am not going to submit to any consideration of the PSOE. If you don't even want to talk to me, I am entitled to talk to others." That is, the leader of the PP would only let the PSOE govern in Extremadura in the event that the Socialists gave them in exchange the Government in the rest of the squares, but since they do not agree, he feels legitimized to negotiate with Vox. At no time has Feijoo asked Guardiola to let Guillermo Fernández Vara govern, and on Tuesday, at the national board of directors, he called her "president".

María Guardiola, at the headquarters of the PP in Mérida, this Wednesday. EUROPA PRESS (EUROPA PRESS)

The Extremaduran leader also defends that she has the "word" of Feijóo that she has "free hands" to agree. And, although his red line is to include them in his Government, he does know that something will have to be agreed with Vox. "I am convinced that I will end up understanding with the Vox candidate when he wants to call me and sit down to talk to me," she said in a defiant tone. "I would like to know if the Vox candidate is managed by the feudal lord to tell him what we have to do in this land," he challenged the representative of the ultras.

The leadership of the PP intends a territory-to-territory negotiation with Vox, and is suspicious of a global pact that weighs on Feijóo. At the top they know that it will not be easy because "after the case of Gallardo, Vox only negotiates from Madrid." The first contacts between addresses have already taken place, but the pulse is open and in the PP there is concern that the elephant in the room of its agreements with the extreme right will be prolonged throughout the campaign.

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Source: elparis

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