The former president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, believes that the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has made a mistake in the campaign for the general elections “saying that he preferred the PSOE” over Vox and does not hide his preferences for Isabel Díaz Ayuso, while citing what José María Aznar did in the 90s to reunite the center right.
But Aznar does not think the same. The Foundation that he presides over has published an editorial today, the way that the former president often has of expressing his opinion in which he singles out a single culprit. Vox.
In a colloquium organized by The Objective together with the lawyer Guadalupe Sánchez, collected by Europa Press, Aguirre pointed out two “book errors” in the campaign for 23-J, one by the PP in its strategy towards Vox and the second by Santiago Abascal, which “have not been good” in the campaign.
The former Madrid president has criticized Feijóo for saying during the final stretch of the campaign “that he preferred the PSOE to Vox”. “I think it is very difficult to sell that to the PP electorate, which is largely the same as Vox,” said Aguirre, who believes that it is “an inconsistency” to say that “sanchismo” is going to be “repealed” while asking “the sanchistas” to vote, when in his opinion he should have said that Vox is a “perfectly constitutional” party with different opinions from those of the PP, but with which . the pact “is much better for Spain” than that of the PSOE with Bildu.
“Well, we have said the opposite, that we like Page (the president of Castilla-La Mancha) more than Abascal,” he lamented. Aguirre recalls that Vox voters were mostly PP voters and the strategy should have been to wage “the cultural battle”, as Ayuso did, and “has been ruled out” in this campaign for the general elections.
La Faes, for its part, writes in its editorial that “none of the errors or insufficiencies that want to be noticed in the PP campaign can equal in its effects the role played by Vox” It considers that “the aggressive and absolutely uncritical reaction” of the Vox leadership can only be explained by “the erratic drift of this party, in its strategic confusion and in the growing frustration of a project – it must not be forgotten – that arose with the objective of replacing the PP”.
On the other hand, he stresses that “Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s reaction has been what can be claimed from a responsible leader, with an institutional sense and who acts as what he is, the winner in these elections, assuming a commitment that is probably neither comfortable nor has final success guaranteed”.
What to do with Vox is the dilemma of the PP leadership. Some maintain that the pacts in Extremadura, Valencia and city councils harmed them, but there they have risen in votes. On the other hand, the polls detected that the voters closest to the PSOE had demobilized, precisely because the Socialists had managed to spread fear with the pacts with Vox, not because they winked at the more focused flank.
Esperanza Aguirre has not hidden her preference for Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “I will not be the one to contradict you”, she has pointed out when the lawyer Guadalupe Sánchez has claimed that the ‘popular’ cannot do this with Feijóo at the helm and it has to be the Madrid president who assumes responsibility.
On Sunday night, when Núñez Feijóo was on the balcony of the PP headquarters to announce the electoral victory, shouts of “Ayuso, Ayuso” were heard among the public, which caused an uncomfortable situation between Feijóo and Ayuso, who was on the balcony. The Madrid president did not say anything and on Monday, in the face of some comments that pointed to her as a future replacement for Feijóo, she lavished praise on the PP leader and expressed her support for him. Of course, when she was asked if she was endangering Feijóo’s leadership, she was not so emphatic. “I don’t think so,” she said.
Aguirre considers that the most feasible is a reissue of the Government of Pedro Sánchez, although he has maintained that the King must first call Alberto Núñez Feijóo as the candidate with the most votes, and has not ruled out the option of obtaining the support of the PNV, although he sees it as “difficult but not impossible”.
The former leader from Madrid has warned that the result of the PP may “even not improve” in the event of an electoral repetition. “We have to change the strategy, the good strategy was Aznar’s,” she insisted, stressing that all sectors to the right of the PSOE must be “comfortable” in the PP, “liberals, Christian Democrats, and even Social Democrats.”
This analysis does not coincide with that of the Aznar Foundation with Esperanza Aguirre, since it is committed to Núñez Feijóo. He stressed that the PP “has reasons for disappointment, but not for discouragement”, because it has reached 8 million votes, accumulates territorial power “like never before”, dominates the Senate “and has a leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who is in a position to continue adding and who will be the reasonable voice in the midst of the cacophony of a left bloc that naturally assumes to entrust itself to the decision of a fugitive, responsible for the greatest attack against the Constitution”.
What’s more, he considers that the PP “is not called to mere resistanceism”, but that it can offer the Spanish a proposal that “Núñez Feijóo will have the opportunity to detail, with ambition, in the investiture process.” He also does not agree with Esperanza Aguirre that the PP may lose support if the elections are repeated. The editorial of the Foundation stresses that if the Spanish are called to the polls again “the PP will be prepared”, and concludes that “it is time for serenity, coherence and patriotism”.
