Alberto Núñez Feijóo has been breathing easy since Sunday. Bad results in the Galician elections did not threaten his position as president of the Popular Party, but it would have opened an unbearable tension within the formation that could have led him to a new remodeling of the party leadership to protect himself more from ” noise” from Madrid. A slur that harasses him for any mistake or slip-up and that was conspired against him after the statements of the top of the party with which they defended in the middle of the campaign and at a lunch with journalists a possible pardon for former president Carles Puigdemont. In a matter of a few days he has gone from being a villain to becoming the hero who has catapulted Alfonso Rueda to an absolute majority in the Xunta. Because even his colleagues had demanded that he put aside the electoral acts in view of the erratic strategy that, in private, they assured that their leader was following with independence.
The victory of the PP has taken the Spanish Government by surprise, which had generated expectations of electoral change that in the end were not fulfilled. The hopes that the popular people had in July of reaching Moncloa have ended up going over the Socialists, who have lost five seats along the way. The PP has had something in its favor and has been able to consolidate leadership in the communities. The same ones that Pedro Sánchez now remembers, who urges his colleagues to settle in the territory, to tour it and to grind stones in view of the loss of regional weight.
When expectations are so high, it is more difficult to manage failure, and the Spanish Government is reluctant to accept it. They repeat that “Feijóo has not won anything” and that he remains in the opposition and they in Moncloa. They do themselves a disservice if they don’t know how to detect that they have Feijóo for a while. They are not in front of a Pablo Casado, and with the Galicians he has reaffirmed himself within the party and appeased the voices that asked for his head in view of any sign of moderation or centrality.
After Sunday, Feijóo has two options: toughen his speech and contribute to the polarization in which Spanish politics remains by approaching the theses of Vox, or recover the speech with which he was presented in April 2022, when he be elected president. Faced with the militancy and cadres of the party, he conspired to avoid the “bloc policy which – he said – prevents two parties from talking”. “I don’t understand”, he assured at the time, and offered an outstretched hand to the PSOE to reach state pacts, but these great agreements have not been reached.
The renewal of the Judiciary could be the beginning. The two meetings in Brussels have made tables, but it is urgent to attend to the claims of Europe, which urged months ago to first name the new judges and then reform the election system. Feijoo has a great opportunity to appear as a statesman. Let’s see if he takes advantage of it.
