Protocol is to politics what the Red Cross is to war. And the disappearance of even the slightest dialogue between the parties means that the last of the bridges has been blown and that, what follows, is the deployment of the artillery.
This was precisely what happened yesterday during the institutional event of the day of the Community of Madrid held at the Puerta del Sol, where the theatrical representation of the battle of May 2, 1808 was overshadowed by the real battle, almost physical, between the Regional Executive, headed by Isabel DÃaz Ayuso and the Central Government represented, among others, by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños.
To understand what happened, we must go back to Sunday, when 48 hours of mutual reproaches began to chain together after Bolaños announced his intention to attend the institutional event organized by the Community even though he had been denied the formal invitation .
Despite the sound of sabres, the Community reluctantly chose to reserve a chair for the “self-invited minister” in the first row of authorities yesterday during the commemorative medal ceremony held in the courtyard of the Royal Post Office. However, at the civic and military event in tribute to the “heroes of May Day” he did not save a place for Minister Bolaños in the tribune of honor, where there were, in addition to Ayuso, the Jemad, Teodoro Esteban López; the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the mayor of Madrid, José Luis MartÃnez-Almeida, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo; the regional vice-president, Enrique Ossorio, and the president of the Assembly, Eugenia Carballedo.
Seeing that he would be left out of the authorities’ photo, Bolaños put his foot on the platform’s ladder, but at that moment the protocol team of the Community prevented him from passing: “We asked him to fulfill the regulations”, was the explanation of the Ayuso team, and the Bolaños team responded with a definitive “the Spanish minister must go up there”.
After a tense exchange of opinions in which some alleged that the institutional representation was “perfectly established”, while others argued that the protocol decree was being “breached” – specifically Royal Decree 2099/ 1983 that regulates the presence of authorities –, Bolaños ended up giving up on his attempt.
All this happened under the watchful eye of Robles, the only Sanchist minister who enjoys the sympathies of the PP and who, hidden behind her sunglasses, neither rioted with Bolaños nor accompanied him in his exile. Even more striking was the subsequent alignment of the president of the government of Aragon, the socialist Javier Lambán, who supported the operation orchestrated by the Community of Madrid claiming that “a minister is not essential in an autonomous act “.
All this sainet obeys the strategy designed by the chief of staff of the Madrid president. Miguel Ãngel RodrÃguez has given the order to keep the direct confrontation between the president and the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, very tense. And the goal is none other than to turn the indisputable electoral victory of 2021 into an absolute majority on the basis of a confrontation with the central government. A majority that allows governing without the need for Vox and, no less importantly, without the tutelage of Feijóo, since the results of the president of the PP in the general elections will be compared with those of the Madrid leader. Especially if you don’t drive the PP in Moncloa.
Ayuso may not be able to choose the guests at his party, but he has unequivocally chosen the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, as his enemy.
