That the PP and Vox will agree in the Valencian Community is obvious; there is no room for other possible political alliances of the popular, not even the possible abstention of the PSPV that the socialists reject outright. The question is how and when this pact will be negotiated, and what model of political relationship will be established between the two forces to guarantee the investiture of Carlos Mazón. That is the first and main objective, the investiture, after the election of the Board of the Valencian Parliament and the president of the institution, a matter in which, logically, the PP will impose its criteria. More important, in political terms, is to know if this pact will include the integration of the party led by Carlos Flores in the government, the participation of Vox in the management of the resources of the Generalitat Valenciana. That is, if he will be the holder of one or more ministries in the regional executive headed by Carlos Mazón, who prefers a solo government. Surely, none of this will materialize until after the 23J elections.

Iñaki Zaragüeta is right when he points out that the voters of the PP and Vox finally want the two forces to understand each other in order to bring about a change in the political cycle, to end the left-wing project started in 2015. But political history shows that in any Alliance between parties to support an executive pays a price, sometimes high, which can end up deteriorating one of the parties involved, even making it marginal. It is not necessary to go very far to see examples: in the Valencian Community, between 1995 and 1999, the PP of Eduardo Zaplana disentailed the Valencian Union. Both forces removed Joan Lerma from the presidency of the Generalitat after what is known as the “chicken pact”. Zaplana would end up turning the PP into a hegemonic force, while Vicente Gonzalez Lizondo’s party disappeared into oblivion.

Vox knows the risks, and has seen them up close. In the Community of Madrid, Santiago Abascal’s party has been removed from the political table after the overwhelming victories of Ayuso and Almeida. In Andalusia, the absolute majority of Moreno Bonilla has diminished the Green Party’s ability to influence. Abascal knows that the decisions that he adopts in terms of agreements with the PP in the autonomies and city councils, where his support is necessary, can condition the future of the party. It is likely that, like Feijóo, he is more interested in waiting for the Spanish political map to become clearer after the general elections: if Vox is weakened by the advance of the PP on 23J, the conditions to support Carlos Mazón will be tougher . And he would win arguments the hypothesis that Carlos Flores’s party will be less kind to the Valencian PP now and during the rest of the legislature.

Carlos Mazón has, therefore, his first great litmus test in a negotiation with Vox in which it is likely that part of the scheme will be imposed by the general agreement reached by Feijóo and Abascal. We will see. The president of the Valencian PP has shown ability in the Alicante Provincial Council to reach agreements even with Compromís; but now the game is played at another level, it is about establishing a framework that allows stability for the next four years. The objective of the Valencian PP will be, logically, to trace a route that, in order to establish its policies in the management of the Generalitat Valenciana, annul the opposition capacity of the left and, also, lay the foundations to be able to aspire to an absolute majority in the elections of 2027. What happens in the coming weeks will offer enough clues, and they will all materialize in that pact that the PP and Vox must forge in the Valencian Community.