The PP accepted that the document in agreement with Vox in the Valencian Community would speak of “domestic violence” instead of sexist violence, as had already happened in the pacts signed first in Andalusia four years ago and then in Castilla y León. But they maintain that this has not been detrimental to equality policies or the fight against sexist violence. What they did not expect was a statement like that of the number two of Santiago Abascal’s party in Valencia, which denied the existence of gender violence and that, by the time it wanted to rectify, the damage had been done.
This situation worries the PP, although its leadership is convinced that its electorate has assumed the pacts with Vox, some because they agree and others because they see them as a lesser evil to govern. The popular believe that the controversy over sexist violence does not detract from their votes, but there is some fear that it could mobilize the left, until now demobilized and “entangled in its internal debates.”
In the PP they blame the veto that they themselves imposed on Carlos Flores, sentenced 20 years ago to a year in prison for sexist violence due to habitual insults to his ex-wife, the fact that Vox was forced to remove him.
But in the PP they also know that there is little left for the elections, that there will not be time to demonstrate that the policies against gender violence are not touched by their governments, and that is why all their leaders came out in a rush on Friday to discredit the words of the Valencian leader of Vox and emphatically affirm that “there will not be a step back in the fight against sexist violence”.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Cuca Gamarra, Borja Sémper and even the Valencian María José Catalá were clear in their messages. The new mayoress of Valencia will govern in a minority, without including Vox in her government: “Not one step back in the rights won and in the fight against gender violence. Nor any more lessons on this issue, ”Catalá said in her inauguration speech.
In any case, what feels bad in the PP is that the left has been given an argument that can serve to hide the situation of division that they observe between the socialists and also between Podemos and Sumar. All in all, the popular ones are confident that this obstacle will be diluted during the campaign, although they know that it can serve as an argument for the left.
The PP will try to ensure that the debate follows other paths, in which there are no black holes that could go against a campaign that the popular have well thought out and in which they want to focus the debate on the economy and the reversal of laws that Feijóo wants to “repeal”, which will result in the reform of the trans law or the Historical Memory law. Thus, Feijóo asked yesterday from Celadas (Teruel) “to culminate on July 23 the change” started on 28-M and make “a calm and calm, but intense change” a reality.
