Alejandro Fernández will be the PP candidate for the regional elections. After a long internal debate, the PP has announced that the regional electoral committee will propose that the president of the party be the head of the list for the 12-M election. According to sources from the national leadership of the party, Fernández has obtained “the support of the main assets of the party.”
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s proposal will be ratified tomorrow at a meeting to be held in Barcelona and where the leader of the formation will attend. The campaign coordinator will be Dolors Montserrat, spokesperson for the EPP.
With this decision, the Popular Party closes a complex process of internal deliberation where the candidate’s profile, relations with the national leadership and good expectations of electoral growth have been taken into account. The deliberative process was finalized on Monday with a meeting held in Madrid between Feijóo and Fernández. Relations between the two had suffered tensions in recent months due to some critical considerations of the Catalan leader with the party line, especially regarding the strategy with Junts.
It was, above all, a question of confidence in the strategic line that Feijóo is drawing with a view to the configuration of the party in Catalonia in the coming years, and the progressive construction of a project towards the Catalan center. Previously, on Monday, March 18, Fernández met with Carmen Fúnez, deputy secretary of organization, to direct relations.
The Popular Party was caught off guard by the electoral advance announced on March 13 by President Pere Aragonès. They were trying to rebuild bridges with Alejandro Fernández, and at the same time they had chosen to hold the pending congress of the Catalan party once the European elections had passed. The strategy and renewal of the party were therefore to be defined when the electoral call was announced two weeks ago.
Faced with this situation, the national leadership moved to seek integration with Ciudadanos where it not only sought the symbolic affirmation of the constitutionalist space but also gained time to make the decision on the candidacy. In this process, a good number of Catalan party leaders have been consulted to evaluate alternatives and analyze the pros and cons of the party president’s candidacy. Alejandro Fernández has a clear speech of opposition to the independence movement and although it is currently in line with that of the national leadership, future scenarios have also been evaluated.
In this sense, it is now decided to maintain a firm speech with a view to recovering the Ciudadanos vote, overcoming Vox, and then the strategy will be adapted depending on the scenarios. Ten days ago, Alejandro Fernández received the support of constitutionalist entities in Catalonia.
Sources from the national leadership underline the need to “put together a strong candidacy that allows the recovery of the PP as a reference formation for constitutionalism, since the PSC has abandoned that framework by becoming an essential crutch for the independence movement.”
