On February 18, Galicia not only chooses who will preside over the Xunta, or at least that is what the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, wants to convey to the Galicians, so that they do not take for granted that the continuity of the current autonomous Executive is guaranteed . The PP needs to obtain an absolute majority to continue governing, and although it has already achieved this in the last four elections, it is not that easy.
For this reason, the dilemma that the president of the PP poses for 18-F is either the Popular Party or the independence movement. The popular leader’s message on the second day of the 26th interparliamentary meeting that the PP held over the weekend in Ourense was focused on that dichotomy, which will be a central issue of the pre-campaign. Or Popular Party, that is, Alfonso Rueda, or independence, because only the BNG candidate has the possibility of becoming president of the Xunta, in a multiparty government chaired by the nationalists, which means, in the eyes of the PP, that the socialist candidate is actually that of the Bloc, which to govern would have to form a government with the PSOE, with Sumar and with Podemos, if the latter two obtain parliamentary representation.
The president of the PP, already involved in the campaign, like Pedro Sánchez – who was closing at the same time on the other side of Galicia, in A Coruña, the PSOE convention –, asked that the Galicians trust his successor and president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, “so that Galicia does not take the path to nowhere,” he said, alluding to the pro-independence partners of the Spanish Government and the nationalist drift that, in his opinion, is becoming strong in other autonomous communities.
So that Rueda can repeat the victory that Feijóo obtained four years ago, when he won 42 seats out of the 75 that make up the Galician Parliament, the president of the PP asked those who voted for him in the previous Galician elections to vote, those who They voted for him on 23-J in the general elections and “to those who voted for Vox, to those who he asked to support the only alternative to Sanchismo”, since Santiago Abascal’s party, according to the polls, will not obtain 5% of the vote required to obtain representation. He also asked those who supported the socialists to vote “and who have realized that they have been lied to, that they have been lied to and that they are not doing what they were told they were going to do, but rather the opposite.” The Galician socialists, also according to the polls, have no chance of coming in second place – no one disputes that the first will be for the PP -, so the new executive, if not from the PP, will not be a socialist but a nationalist, from the BNG . A formation that Rueda was responsible for remembering that he has demonstrated with Bildu to ask for the freedom of ETA prisoners “who killed Galicians in the Basque Country.”
Feijóo sees an absolute majority possible, for the fifth time, “if a vote is not given up as lost,” if “all the villages” go out and if the PP “goes out into the streets hungry, with desire” and convinces Galicians that voting for the PP, on February 18, is “voting Galicia.”
The popular leader entered the campaign with a mainly Galician speech, like the president of the Xunta, although Feijóo did not forget his criticism of Sánchez, given, he said, those he received on Saturday from the socialists meeting in A Coruna. Thus, he accused Sánchez of carrying out “the greatest democratic setback since the approval of the Constitution” taking over, in his opinion, all the institutions, from the CIS to the Efe agency through the Constitutional Court, and saying that for the sake of coexistence “ There will be amnesty if you make me president, if not, no.”
Núñez Feijóo pointed out that “it is not surprising that the independentists are so filled with arrogance” and that they clearly tell the Spaniards that “what they say is done here.” And that is what the president of the PP is trying to warn Galicians against. “We do not want to bring problems from other places to Galicia,” he insisted, warning that if the BNG wins, there will be a government in Galicia similar to the one that governs in Spain. “Sánchez is the now of the expectations of the independentists,” insisted Feijóo, for whom they only want “for us not to be united, to go backwards in rights, rupture, inequality.” Independentists, he stressed, “who love their ideology more than Galicia.” Faced with them, Rueda is “endorsed by the trust of his word, responsible work, and the guarantee of political stability, so necessary for economic stability,” he concluded.
In the morning, the deputy secretary of regional and local coordination and electoral analysis of the PP, Elías Bendodo, demanded that the Government convene the conference of presidents now and undertake “the necessary simultaneous reform of local and regional financing.” In his speech, Bendodo assured that the Government “has been saying for years” that it is going to address regional financing, and stressed that his party demands that “local financing also be reformed at the same time.” “Sánchez cannot put all the effort on the city councils and the autonomous communities while he continues to fatten his pharaoh’s court of 22 ministries and thousands of senior officials and advisors,” he proclaimed.
