Those who have followed other regional electoral campaigns in Galicia assure that this is one of the strangest they remember. The main party, the PP, with four consecutive majorities behind it, is following the events, trying to plug the waterways that are opening here and there, without much order.
It is true that it is still the winning party, but something is wrong in the enormous machinery of the Popular Party in Galicia.
In this context, the revelations, from sources at the highest level in the party, about the conversations with Junts, prior to the failed investiture of Feijóo last summer and the recognition that the law of Amnesty, as well as the admission that a pardon could be an acceptable route for Puigdemont’s case in certain circumstances, have only added anxiety to this singular campaign in which, until two days ago, the reproaches against Pedro Sánchez for his Negotiations with the Catalan independentists were a dish served at the Rueda and Feijóo rallies, morning, afternoon and night.
The protagonist of this mess, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, did not deny any of the facts yesterday and limited himself, in a contact with the press in Ferrol, to stating that he said and continues to say no to the amnesty and pardons because “to this day there is no the conditions are met” that the PP would have put on the table to address its reconciliation plan in Catalonia. The leader of the PP accused the socialists of “muddying up the campaign, something,” he said, “that we already know they know how to do.” What Feijóo did not explain is why these revelations have occurred now and from sources within the PP itself.
Feijóo, who yesterday closed his parallel campaign at a rally in Outeiro del Rei – a municipality where the PP sweeps the municipal elections with 60% of the votes but who yesterday did not manage to fill all the chairs ready to listen to the big boss – avoided doing any allusion to this controversial story. His attention was focused on Minister Marlaska, whom he asked to resign for the murder of two civil guards in Barbate while reproaching the President of the Government for, in full mourning for this attack suffered by the agents, he went “to a festival cinema”. He was referring to the Goya gala.
Nor did the candidate for the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, address this issue in his rallies. His team assures that his campaign will not change. They have other concerns: the push of the Galician Nationalist Bloc and the demobilization of their own electorate.
Those who are going to try to take advantage of the scenario that has been discovered this weekend are the socialists. Yesterday, the candidate of the Socialist Party of Galicia, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who, for the second time, accompanied him in this campaign, did not neglect the matter. His argument can be summarized in one word: “hypocrisy.” His campaign team believes that the mess can, above all, demotivate PP voters. “They are the ones who should be worried about everything we know now.”
Meanwhile, the BNG, oblivious to what Ana Pontón once described as “little Madrid battles,” continues its upward course convinced that these controversies do nothing but benefit its discourse focused on Galicia.
And finally, at the other end of the Peninsula, Junts continues without opening its mouth and it is Esquerra Republicana that regrets for the umpteenth time that its competitor in the Catalan independence galaxy takes the initiative despite having overturned the Amnesty law and with the complicity of the socialist party.
