After Manuel Fraga as the man of state dedicated to his native Galicia and Alberto Núñez Feijóo as a manager rather than a politician at the head of the Xunta, the marketing operation in which the Galician PP is embarked is that of the “Rueda style ”. This strategy seeks to publicize the new president of the Xunta, whose popularity is not very high, and to mark a new profile, affable and accessible, in the face of a certain deification of Feijóo. Within this plan, Alfonso Rueda reconverted his first protocol contacts with the opposition leaders in the search for a “country agreement” to take Pedro Sánchez to Moncloa. The meetings, held separately and held this afternoon in Santiago, staged a more relaxed atmosphere, but without specific agreements, although Rueda considered that there were some implicit ones. But the opposition did not give the endorsement it was looking for and demanded the rectification of the Xunta, especially in health matters, while the PP-BNG antagonism was evident.
The president of the A Coruña Provincial Council and mayor of As Pontes, Valentín González Formoso, has been secretary general of the PSdeG since December. After his appointment he asked Feijóo twice by letter for a meeting, which was no longer held, despite the fact that he was always one of the best-regarded socialist leaders in the leadership of the Xunta. Another example of the attitude of the Xunta in recent years was that of a Spanish medical society that toured the autonomies to present a white paper related to the pandemic to governments and political groups. He could not go to Galicia because the Xunta vetoed the presence of the opposition, arguing that it has an absolute majority.
Feijóo did hold meetings with the political groups in the pandemic, which started from the need he had to build a consensus to postpone the elections scheduled for April. Later, he kept them to report on the conferences of regional presidents, in an environment that was deteriorating, especially when the popular called the elections in July against what was agreed with the other parties.
In this context, after Feijóo’s four consecutive absolute majorities, which raised him to the pedestal from which he jumped to the presidency of the Popular Party of Spain, his successor, Alfonso Rueda, tries to make a virtue of necessity, since, without having gone through the ballot boxes, step on the ground.
In this line, his media speakers emphasize ad nauseam that he went on a motorcycle, not in an official car, to a rural act of the party.
In the appearance of Formoso, the first to be received, the keywords were “cordiality”, for the kind manners, and “disappointment”, for the lack of specificity, especially in health matters, as well as the hope that what this Monday is the starting point of a pattern of dialogue. The general secretary of the PSdeG regretted that the meeting was “not as productive” as he would have liked and confirmed the existence of “important points of disagreement” in health. Faced with the triumphalism that the Xunta has exhibited due to the low impact of the pandemic in Galician territory, the least in the Iberian Peninsula, the socialists consider that Galicia is experiencing “a health collapse” and propose 140 million euros more in the 2023 budget.
But there were also rapprochements on issues such as European funds, although Formoso claims greater involvement of the Xunta, and on claims to the central government, such as the flexibility for the extraordinary call for MIR positions for doctors.
Much more forceful, from her position as head of the opposition and leader of the eventual alternative to the PP, was the nationalist Ana Pontón. “After 90 minutes of meeting I leave wondering why the president of the Xunta summons us if he does not want to reach agreements,” she declared. In his opinion, Feijóo’s successor was only looking for a photo, as well as being supported “in generalities”, in view of his meeting with Sánchez. “Agreeing on what depends on others is very easy,” added Pontón.
Faced with a Xunta in his opinion “locked into thinking that everything does everything well”, the BNG, assured Pontón, proposed alternatives, such as a shock plan of 200 million euros for public health and another of 700 million to help the groups most affected by the economic crisis, to deal with situations of exclusion and give oxygen to families with lower incomes. He acknowledged some points of agreement on demands from the central government, although he stressed that the Bloc’s position is more ambitious.
The president of the Xunta was satisfied with the opening of the dialogue, regardless of the differences that arose during the contacts. He championed this path, both at the beginning of the round of meetings and at the end. And it is that unlike what Feijóo did, who received his opponents in his office, Rueda went down to the door of the presidency. And in the press conference to assess the interviews, the president of the Xunta considers that the meetings constitute “good news in itself”, with a cordial tone.
Rueda went even further and assured, based on the points in which there were coincidences, that he did receive the support of the opposition in some of the questions that he is going to ask Pedro Sánchez, such as that related to the call for medical positions or to the Next Generation funds, even if it was without specific agreements. ““At no time did they tell me that they were not in agreement”, he added.
The great obstacle to an agreement was that Rueda was seeking the endorsement to bring a unitary Galician agenda to Sánchez and BNG and PSdeG wanted to agree on issues that are the exclusive responsibility of the Xunta, such as health. In this second field, the president of the Xunta affirmed to have seen the opposition installed in legitimate pretensions, but “little achievable”.
Optimism seems to be incorporated into the Rueda-style advertising campaign as well.
