One day after Vox took over the presidency of the Valencian Parliament, Alberto Núñez Feijóo landed in Valencia to make clear his support for the pact signed by Carlos Mazón to govern the Valencian Community. “These pacts are a guarantee of governability,” he said, while stressing that the pact with Vox, a party he did not mention, will not mean “giving up any of our principles”, in clear reference to the positions that Abascal’s party maintains on issues such as gender violence, his rejection of the LGTBI collective or climate denialism.
Feijóo’s visit yesterday, scheduled to present his program on health matters, had for this reason a strong symbolic charge. Not only did he endorse the Valencian pact, but the president of the Spanish PP marked the path that he wants to establish with the pending government pacts with Vox in other autonomies such as Aragon, Extremadura or the Balearic Islands. “We will always form governments proportionate to the results in each autonomy, and have no doubt that we will govern for everyone,” Feijóo signed.
The position of the popular leader internally settles the doubts of those who questioned the anxiety that these alliances with Santiago Abascal are generating. Especially the Valencian case, the first that was signed and that allows Vox a vice-presidency in the future Valencian executive, with competences in Culture (which will be managed by the former bullfighter Vicente Barrera), in addition to the Ministries of Justice and Agriculture.
It is, finally, an endorsement of what was negotiated by Carlos Mazón, to whom some attributed excessive speed in negotiating an agreement that has generated harsh criticism for having allowed the ultra-right to enter a regional government.
Feijóo went further and stated that Pedro Sánchez should not “give lessons in pacts”. He referred to those reached by the Prime Minister with “populists, nationalists and independentists”, in a clear message to try to delegitimize the criticism that Sánchez, as Feijóo added, “is launching on television sets.”
By the tone exposed in Valencia, the president of the PP hinted that he is in a hurry to close the pending pacts in other autonomies with Vox. He is also in a hurry Carlos Mazón to achieve the investiture. He urged Ximo Puig to “get out of the chair now, don’t take it forever, don’t prolong it, don’t make any more decisions with a government in office.”
