After consummating pacts with Vox in three autonomous communities and dozens of municipalities, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has set on Monday what criteria he will follow if he wins the general elections of July 23 without an absolute majority. The president of the PP will govern in coalition with Vox in case he needs the vote in favor of the ultras to open the doors of La Moncloa. "My limit to governing alone is to have more seats than the left. Where we need the yes of Vox, the logical thing is that Vox is in the Government; if I do not have to ask for the yes, the logical thing is that it is not part of it, "said Feijóo in an interview in the Ana Rosa Program, in Telecinco. The last 40dB poll. for EL PAÍS and Cadena SER shows a loss of just over two percentage points in estimation of the PP vote, which continues to lead (31%), with 125 seats, weighed down precisely by the pacts with the ultras. With this result, it would necessarily need the yes of Vox to be able to form a government team. And, therefore, accept ministers of the ultra formation, according to the criteria set by Feijóo on Monday. "The most important thing," Feijóo said of the red lines in politics, "is not to lie to people and have a criterion."

But before "the fear" to the extreme right "instilled by the PSOE", point out sources of the popular leadership, both the leader and other senior officials of the PP insist on the need to govern with an absolute majority so as not to have to depend on Vox. This was proclaimed this Sunday by the popular president in a pre-campaign act in Toledo and this is how barons and members of the executive transfer it in private. That is the message they want to fit in the citizens, also in the voters of Vox, whom they call to concentrate around the Popular Party as a "useful vote" to oust Pedro Sánchez. "Absolute majorities are very difficult, but that's my model. It is not a manifestation of intentions, it is a possible objective," added Feijóo. But no poll poses such a scenario. Perhaps that is why the leader of the opposition already imagines that the option of governing in coalition with the extreme right is more than plausible, and has assured that, if necessary, he will not shake the pulse to dismiss an ultra minister when controversies occur in his government action. "The president cannot be half president," he stressed in reference to Sánchez and his position regarding the head of Equality, Irene Montero.

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The PSOE shortens distances with the PP after the pacts with Vox, but Feijóo remains in the lead

What Feijóo is clear about are the rules that he will erase if he arrives at La Moncloa. "We are going to repeal a set of laws that are impositions of the minority to the majority of Spaniards," said the leader of the PP, and has mentioned in particular the law of democratic memory, the reformed law of only yes is yes, the law of education and the trans law. To these is added the Housing Law, as announced last week. The president of the Popular Party has explained in turn that he will criminalize the illegal referendum. Sources of the economic team of the PP add that the tax on large fortunes will be repealed. A promise that will be included in the electoral program for 23-J, which is presented this Tuesday.

The leader of the PP has not revealed on Monday the name of his future head of Economy, but he has given more clues about the chosen, a man who "has governed, but not in Spain." So Pablo Hernández de Cos, governor of the Bank of Spain, is emerging as the name that best fits in the pools. He is also the most desired candidate within the party. "The Minister of Economy of my Government will be an accredited person and with whom people can sleep peacefully," he said.

Moreno: "María Guardiola has had to swallow his words"

They hope within the PP that the 23 days that still lie ahead until the appointment with the polls dilute the effect that the pacts reached with Vox could have in the sense of the vote, especially among those "socialists fed up with Sánchez". Because most of the polls published this Monday, such as the 40dB one. for EL PAÍS and Cadena SER, they show a setback in the results of the PP after having sealed agreements with the ultras. "Twenty days is a lot of days. There are people who decide in the last 48 hours, "says a baron of the PP.

The last agreement reached with the party of Abascal – with whom Feijóo claims to have spoken – was forged on Friday in Extremadura to take over the regional executive. "In Valencia and Extremadura we needed the yes of Vox, this was my criterion, and I transferred it to María Guardiola," revealed the leader of the Popular Party on the Extremaduran candidate of the PP – the second most voted list on 28-M behind the PSOE – , which initially refused to integrate the ultras into his Government due to irreconcilable ideological differences Some statements that Feijóo has attributed to the "emotional intensity" of the Moment. Guardiola ended up accepting, 20 days later, to give Vox a counseling, forced by the national leadership of the party. "Then the waters returned to their course," he stressed.

Feijóo has put Andalusia and its president, Juan Manuel Moreno, as an example of the absolute majority achieved just a year ago in the general elections after decades of socialist hegemony. A feat that Feijóo now intends to emulate. The Andalusian leader, at the same time of the interview of Feijóo in Telecinco, intervened in a meeting organized by the newspaper El Mundo in Madrid. During his speech, he was blunt about the strategy followedby Guardiola in Extremadura. "He has had to swallow his words," he said. On the 23-J, the president of the Board has pointed out: "Just as I made a Feijóo in Andalusia, now it is his turn to make a Juanma Moreno".

González defends that the most voted list "is acceptable when there is no other option"

In this context, in which the PSOE reproaches Feijóo for not having respected after 28-M his maxim that governs the most voted list, which would have allowed the Socialists to revalidate the Junta de Extremadura and the mayors of 52 cities, Felipe González has published an article in which he advocates the search for "solutions in which the most voted list is acceptable when there is no other option". The former President of the Government declares himself "a supporter of pacts, especially centrality pacts", in the prologue of the latest issue of Nueva Revista, published by the International University of La Rioja. "These strengthen not only democracy, but also the destiny of a country. When these pacts of centrality disappear, the country weakens, polarizes, loses strength and credibility both internally and internationally. And that's where we are now," he adds, giving as an example concrete cases such as those of the United States and Brazil.

"Thinking about the Spanish context, there are proposals that could make sense if we were not trapped in political blockades. Six months ago they would make more sense than now, which is more difficult," says González. "What do we ask in exchange for allowing governing? Don't ask for anything. If you don't ask for anything, they will have to reach agreements on every bill and budget. Why is this accumulated political experience not transmitted?", proposes the socialist referent in an article entitled "Agree".

During the presentation of the monograph at the Centro Riojano in Madrid, González has defended that "some pacts are more or less necessary, but others are for survival" and has referred to climate change, whose existence Vox denies, to point out an issue "on which it would deserve to reach a great pact of coexistence". In his presentation, González has vindicated the PSOE for its "systemic role in society" and has declared himself "offended" by "insulting" his party, "especially those who are his partners." And he lamented the paralysis that affects some of the main institutions of the State: "We are not respecting the Constitution: we continue without the Council of the Judiciary," he said. The PP prevents its renewal, pending for four and a half years.

González emphasizes in his article the idea that "the essence of the functioning of an efficient democracy is to add the maximum of wills in the matters in which the country is at stake. But it is at stake with the interests of citizens, not with the interests of politicians. That's a constant claim. And if anyone thinks that to agree is to eliminate the conflict inherent in the functioning of a democratic society, they are mistaken." And he concludes: "If someone thinks that people punish the one who agrees, he is much more wrong."

The former socialist president, who unlike José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has not had an active role in the PSOE's pre-campaign, stresses that the pacts "are a constant" of his political experience and highlights "milestones" of "that negotiation dynamic, such as the Pacts of La Moncloa". "There was an intangible value that people don't want to see. That from the heirs of the PNV to the heirs of the Communist Party, passing through many more than those who later remained at the polls, we could sit at a table, talk, analyze the situation of the country and reach the conclusion that we had to agree on a path. It was a difficult and painful road, but essential to move our country forward." His conclusion is that the Pacts of La Moncloa were "a training" that gave them "the perspective to reach a constitutional agreement" and supposed "a psychological training, through dialogue and the search for a general interest to save a critical situation of transition between a regime like Franco's and a democracy".

It receives every afternoon the bulletin Diario de elecciones, with the analysis of Ricardo de Querol, deputy director, and Luis Barbero, editor-in-chief editor.

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