A week after the general elections, the two eventual allies of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Canary Islands Coalition (CC) and the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) fell out. With nuances, but they come out of the frame. The elected deputy of CC, Cristina Valido, stressed, in statements to La Vanguardia, that her formation is in a position to support either of the two blocks, the one led by Feijóo but also the one led by Sánchez. “If in the end, only one vote is missing and we are decisive for one or the other, we will have to negotiate and we could reach a specific investiture agreement.”
This resituation of the Canary Islands Coalition – which in the past regional elections took over the presidency of the community thanks to the support of the PP and despite the fact that the PSOE was the party with the most votes – is relevant because its only seat opts for the majority of one block or the other. without the explicit support of Junts per Catalunya. With the punctual support of the Canarian nationalists, only with the abstention of the Catalan independentistas, it would be enough to invest Sánchez.
On another level, the leader of UPN, Javier Esparza, threw a jug of very cold water on the political expectations of Núñez Feijóo, who said that he will not be president of the Government in “any of the scenarios.” “Unfortunately, the result allows Pedro Sánchez to be president.” “It is legitimate that [Feijóo] tries it because he has won the elections, but he will have more votes against than in favor. He can’t be fooling people.”
These statements are understood from the disagreement that the regionalist formation maintains with the PP, a former ally they have faced, in a true fratricidal war, since the vote on the validation of the labor reform in February of last year.
Then, the two UPN deputies, Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanero, betrayed voting discipline and frustrated the approach of the regionalists to the PSOE that Esparza had negotiated with Félix Bolaños. Sayas and Adanero are today in the ranks of the PP and both have been elected deputies, after the CERA vote in the case of the latter. The two formations faced each other in the regional and general elections for the space of the Navarrese right, in the midst of a very hostile climate.
Esparza has tried on several occasions to get closer to the PSOE, since it is the only way that UPN has to return to power in Navarra; However, his participation in Pedro Sánchez’s majority game seems unthinkable. The profile of a party like UPN, very conservative and antithetical to a plurinational vision of Spain, does not match that of the other partners. Esparza, in any case, is committed to setting his own profile. The divorce with the PP is deep and yesterday he returned a puya to Feijóo, after a tough electoral campaign in which the popular had opted to leave UPN without deputies in Congress by appealing to the useful vote. UPN finally achieved one of the five representatives elected in Navarra, while the PP added another.
The position of Coalition Canaria is very different but the result is similar. The Canarian nationalists are not going to waste their position to take advantage of it, as they have always done when they have been decisive in Congress since its constitution in 1993.
In fact, his strong campaign message of setting “red lines” for a government that included Vox and Sumar in the equation and rejecting any agreement where these “extremes” enter, has begun to weaken in a matter of hours and now they are open to the possibility of “timely support” for investiture. It is about providing stability to the country and avoiding going to new elections even if the formation of Yolanda Díaz or that of Santiago Abascal are in the next executive.
As the deputy makes clear, she is willing to talk and reach “a specific investiture agreement” with the bloc “that commits itself to the pending issues in the Canary Islands.” “With this we prove our responsibility and our sense of State, helping to start the legislature and not having the country stopped for five more months until new elections arrive,” Valido said. Among the issues that the nationalists are going to fight in exchange for their agreement is the improvement of regional financing, compliance with the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) -with the bonus of 100% of the transport of Goods-, the entry of the Canary Islands in the management of Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (Aena) through Enaire, as stated in article 161 of the Canary Islands Statute of Autonomy, and solutions to immigration, with more resources to attend to immigrants at sea and on land, as well as an “agile” referral to other autonomous communities. Being informed of the agreements that are closed with other countries in terms of migration, such as those reached with Morocco months ago and which are opaque, is another of the claims that CC will put on the table by virtue of article 144 of the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands.
The formation that was born in 1993 “from power to power” has supported both the right and the left during the different legislatures: it gave its yes to José María Aznar in 1996 and in 2000; He also supported José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2004 although he abstained in 2008, and he did the same in 2012 at the investiture of Mariano Rajoy, to give him his yes in 2016 and abstain in the motion of no confidence in 2018. In 2019, the then CC deputy Ana Oramas voted against Pedro Sánchez, breaking the voting discipline of the party, which had decided to abstain.
