Alberto Núñez Feijóo (Ourense, 1961) sees the goal close but does not trust the polls. He is happy with how the campaign has gone but tired of so many planes and so many AVEs.
In what state of mind is he in this final stretch?
The truth is that every time I go somewhere, it’s a boost to my spirits, because people are very hooked on the campaign and very enthusiastic about the possibility of a change of government in Spain.
In the interview with Pedro Sánchez, I asked him to give me a positive nickname for him and he told me that he was tough, that he has a great capacity to tell 20 lies and that he does not blink an eyelash.
I don’t like insults. I have not come to insult Pedro Sánchez, I have come to beat him.
But on the subject of lies, a whole campaign has been built on his person as a result of face to face.
The best thing about face to face is how it is recorded, and surely there are many journalists in our country who have seen it several times and will draw their conclusions.
On Monday they caught him in one, in an interview on RTVE
Are you referring to the pension revaluation index? Well, I think it’s clear that I was wrong in the index, but I don’t know if any candidate has been audited with such intensity. Yeah. I rectified it as soon as I got to the office and checked it. The journalist was right that in some years the PP increased pensions not according to the CPI, but with another revaluation index, which is the pension revaluation index. What if I reiterate that the PSOE froze pensions , despite the fact that Mr. Sánchez denied it. And he lied.
At this point of contradictory statements, you have criticized the approaches that the PP made to Vox when you were in Galicia and now you maintain that if you need Vox’s yes it is logical that you enter the Government
I think both criteria are quite honest and sincere. As president of the Board, I have worked for 13 years so that Vox did not enter the Galician Parliament. At the beginning of the first legislatures it did not even exist. Vox has had a positive electoral rebound since Sánchez arrived at the Government of Spain. What happens now? I still think that a government without Vox is good. And I still think that it is necessary that those who want to change the Government in Spain and those who do not want to replace and expand a Frankenstein 2 should vote for the party that can guarantee it, which is the PP. And that only party is the People’s Party.
But if you don’t have a majority…
I am concerned that Spain is governed by pro-independence parties. That is why I offered Sánchez that if he wins, I will support him in the investiture, as long as he does not govern with independentistas: I asked him for reciprocity. If I win, let me govern without agreeing with Vox. Therefore, the PSOE is not concerned that Vox is in the government, what worries it is that the PP wins. Therefore, I tell the citizens: I do not want to govern with Vox, I do not want a coalition with Vox, and I ask the citizens to vote so that Sánchez, Sumar’s populism and the independence movement do not govern Spain and that a party, which is the party of change. I want to avoid that coalition and I ask the Spanish people to have a majority party without a coalition. I am not saying that the PSOE and Vox are the same parties, they are very different, but they have coincident interests: that the PP does not win.
That being said, can you safely rule out that Santiago Abascal will not be your vice president?
It is very difficult for me to think that the Socialist Party, if it has an electoral failure, maintains the blockade of the country. Because Sánchez already did it in 15 and 16. And because he forced us to repeat the elections in 19. I have to have some hope that the PSOE will not make it difficult to govern the country and prevent us from agreeing with Vox. I don’t think you can be so… cynical? Are you worried about a pact and your only objective is that your political adversary does not reach agreements? The reality is that he is not concerned about the pact.
You in the face to face avoided condemning the phrase that I voted for you, Txapote. I give you the chance now to sentence her here
I am not going to use that phrase, but I am certainly not going to censure a citizen, much less the sister of a murdered person, who has to accept lessons on what democracy is in Spain with Bildu. That cannot be accepted. But that phrase is not from the PP. I, on the other hand, have had to hear how the Socialist Party called the leaders of the PP murderers. murderers.
Where this? When?
During the Iraq war and during the 11-M attack. The PP was called murderers for a long time. But they did not call it on the street, they called it the leaders of the PSOE.
In the event that you can form a government, you have announced that a woman will be vice president, will you have a joint government?
I already had them in Galicia. Galician law required it. But now I will let myself be carried away by the capacity criterion. I believe that this is how it should be and I am not worried because I believe that a very equal government can be achieved
What project do you have for Catalonia? And don’t tell me what she said one day that the Catalans are fine.
For Catalonia, I have the project of changing the conversation, of talking about issues that concern citizens and not those that concern some politicians. I have the project of recovering the companies that have left, of improving and making the Catalan economy grow, because there are possibilities to do so. I have the project to restore Barcelona as one of the cultural capitals of Europe or to create employment, to improve the infrastructure. I have the project of respecting the historical nationality that is Catalonia.
This week, its candidate for Barcelona, ??Nacho Martín Blanco, has said that it is probable that a PP government will reactivate the independence movement. Do you agree?
There are some who say that this is likely, especially Mr. Sánchez. But I am going to speak to all the parties in Catalonia. I come from an autonomous community where there was also a pro-sovereignty party that had surpassed the PSOE and I have agreed on some things with them. What I cannot accept is that the Constitution or the Statute are not complied with. Within these margins, there is no problem to talk to parties that are on the other ideological side.
At yesterday’s rally in Barcelona, ??he said that the PP had made mistakes in the past in Catalonia. What was he referring to?
We probably should have acted earlier and not let it go all the way. But of course, a party that gets two deputies, if it does not accept that it has made mistakes, is that it does not see the electoral results. So, of course, two deputies in the Catalan Parliament is an electoral failure. I think that Catalonia has to see that the Popular Party does not withdraw from the autonomous community, that it does not absent itself from Catalan politics, that the Popular Party is a key piece in Catalan constitutionalism.
Do you think that the disappearance of CiU allows them to have a political space to grow?
I think so, because the Convergence space is there. Unfortunately, Puigdemont’s party has abandoned it and there is a space for citizens that is there, that is very latent. What we need is for the Catalans to see us as a Catalan, autonomist party, with people from Catalonia. The Popular Party of Catalonia has to go to make a comeback. We started it in the municipalities. We said that we were going to be a decisive force in Barcelona and we were. We avoided a government of independentistas and we gave the mayor of Barcelona to the PSC. Well, anyway, we have doubled the number of votes. And I believe that we will also see this comeback in the general elections.
The late Josep Piqué in an interview recommended that you make positive offers for Catalonia, specifically the improvement of the financing system…
Yeah. This is the way. I think that the autonomous communities are on the limit. Health occupies one of every two euros. And up. The central government makes unilateral decisions that are sometimes financed by the community or co-financed by the community without anyone
Some time ago, when you presided over the Xunta, you were concerned about the high number of officials and you told me that the Administration had to be reformed. Will he do it now if he wins?
There are certain places and in certain ministries that have been left empty of competence. It does not make sense to have a Ministry of Consumption because this is transferred to the autonomous communities. It makes no sense, in my opinion, to have universities, to have culture and to have education in three different departments when they can be in two. We have to think more about dignifying the State administration and digitizing it. But it is very mammoth in ministries, especially in Madrid, the general administration of the State.
At the infrastructure level, we have had a radial system in Spain for many years. As a person who comes from Galicia, do you propose any changes to overcome this situation?
I think that many times we have done too much infrastructure in the center and very, very little that joins the periphery. All the autonomous communities have highways to Madrid, but they do not have highways between them. The paradigmatic example that I personally experienced is that Galicia had two highways to the plateau and did not have the highway to the Cantabrian Sea. The Mediterranean corridor is another example. It is late and in fits and starts. We do not have Catalonia and Valencia connected. I think it is a mistake made by people who have not worked in autonomous communities. And it is that we have an autonomous State that is key. We have to unite Spain peripherally and thus it will be more competitive.
Tell me something positive about Mr. Pedro Sánchez.
It is clear that he is a person who has an enormous ambition for power and acts according to it. We have seen it. When they fired him as secretary general, he came back and won the primaries, and we have seen him during the five years of president, since he has been capable of agreeing everything with anyone.
What Spain does the person of Feijóo dream of?
Well, with the Spain of cordiality, a multilingual Spain, with a richer Spain, with a more diverse Spain. And of course, I also dream of a Spain in which people live better economically and in which we do not live on behalf of our children. What is the huge debt at a rate of 8 million per hour, 200 million per day, that Pedro Sánchez has left us during these five years. And it is that this debt weighs more than 40,000 million euros in the budget each year, only interest. Imagine what we could do in Catalonia with the payment of one year’s interest on the debt of the State Administration.
