The government agreement between the PP and Vox to govern the Generalitat Valenciana, signed on Thursday, offered a first detonation yesterday, with possible effects on this pact, regarding the denial of Abascal’s party on gender violence. The number two of the formation on the regional list for Valencia, José María Llanos, possible Minister of Justice, stated in statements to TVE that “gender violence does not exist, sexist violence does not exist.”
A statement that, being consistent with Vox’s ideology, was underlined twenty-four hours after the Valencian agreement and generated an avalanche of reactions against it. So intense that even Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself was forced to intervene to sign on social networks “that gender violence does exist” and to warn that the popular ones are not going to renounce their principles “whatever the cost”.
A blow on the table that was joined, an hour later, by the next Valencian president, Carlos Mazón, who in another tweet in which he pointed out that “gender violence and sexist violence do exist.” Mazón added: “Not only am I not going to allow even a step back, but we are also going to reinforce all measures to protect women in any form of violence.”
The PP’s reaction caused surprise on the Valencian left, since in the agreement signed between the PP and Vox for this legislature, which includes 50 programmatic points, the cultural and symbolic story of Abascal’s training in gender matters is accepted. In fact, there is no reference to gender or sexist violence, nor to feminism or equality. On the contrary, it incorporates the “fight against domestic violence”; an idea that has always been part of the Vox story since its foundation.
Hours later, José María Llanos himself wrote another tweet on social networks in which he stated that he would like to “rectify” and “condemn all kinds of violence against women, including sexist violence, what I deny is the existence of violence against gender”. That is to say, he remained in the position that forced Feijóo and Mazón to react.
The cultural and symbolic story of Vox permeates the Valencian agreement. The PP has achieved control of the strategic ministries and 92% of the budget of the Generalitat Valenciana. But Vox’s ideology, embodied in the agreement document on issues such as historical memory, whose regulations they want to repeal; the evidence that there is no mention of climate change, the fight against “illegal immigration” or the occupation, threatens to generate many problems for the Valencian PP.
Feijóo’s harsh reaction confirms what was already advanced on Thursday: that Genoa is very attentive to the consequences of a pact with Vox that can offer other detonations that negatively contaminate the 23J electoral campaign for the PP. The national leadership of the party knew the details of the document that was approved on Thursday, what seems to be that the consequences of some proposals that will force the PP to pronounce itself were not measured, as happened yesterday with gender violence.
