If Pedro Sánchez wants to base his campaign on the fact that his defeat would mean a coalition government between PP and Vox, Alberto Núñez Feijóo is not going to give him the satisfaction.
The leadership of the PP is aware that in order to obtain some governments of communities in which it has won, but not sufficiently, it will have to agree with Vox, and that today it will be president of the Government only if it is supported by Abascal’s party.
But the president of the PP refuses to talk about pacts. Or, more precisely, of coalition governments with Vox that could mean for him the same ordeal that he intuits that it has meant for Pedro Sánchez to have ministers from United We Can in his Cabinet. With one difference, he assures that he would not make the concessions that Sánchez has made.
For this reason, as happened on Monday, at the press conference he offered at the PP headquarters after the call for general elections, or on Tuesday before the national board of directors of his party, or on Wednesday at the meeting of the Cercle de EconomÃa, The president of the PP avoids ruling on the pacts in the same way, he affirms, that “Sánchez does not speak of the possible pacts with Bildu in Navarra, in Pamplona or in Vitoria”.
Feijóo’s mantra is that he wants to govern alone, although he does not rule out agreements with Vox. In an interview on the Ana Rosa Quintana program, on Telecinco, he stressed that the PP has “clearly” won in many territories, and has brought to those places “the change that citizens demanded to turn the page on the Sánchez government.”
Feijóo addressed Santiago Abascal to urge him that “if he wants to repeal sanchismo, as he assures, “he is in a position to facilitate it”, but if what he wants is “a share of power in the councils or ministries, let him say so”.
The popular leader maintains that the PP “has clearly won” in the Valencian Community, in Aragon or in the Balearic Islands, “and I hope that no one interrupts this change.”
An appeal to Abascal at a time when Feijóo has already made it clear that there will not be a global agreement, but that territory by territory will be negotiated. He wants to demonstrate with this that his possible alliance with Vox will always be strictly necessary, and even then he will try to avoid it. If there are other possibilities, he will explore them and they will even take precedence.
He gives Cantabria as an example, where the PP obtained 15 seats and if he adds the 4 of Vox he has one above the absolute majority, but the until now president of the community, Miguel Ãngel Revilla, has already said that he will facilitate the investiture of the candidate of the PP in exchange for Vox not entering the executive.
In the Balearic Islands the same. Marga Prohens lacks five deputies for an absolute majority, which she would achieve with the 8 that Vox obtained, but the PP has more seats than all the other left-wing parties combined, and intends to govern alone, although for her inauguration she needs at least the Vox abstention. But they do not intend to incorporate them into the government.
This will not be possible if the PP wants to govern Aragon or the Valencian Community, where it has won, or Extremadura, where the PP and PSOE have tied seats, although the Socialists have won in votes. There the 5 votes of Vox are essential compared to the 4 of Podemos.
Given all this panorama, Feijóo dreams of being in a situation like that of Marga Prohens in the Balearic Islands, where Vox would have to get involved in her investiture, but would not be in a position to demand ministries in her government.
Feijóo considers that the message that Pedro Sánchez addressed to his deputies and senators this week – in which he accused the PP of being a “Trumpist†party – demonstrates what he has been saying for a long time: “it has become weakâ€. Feijóo endorses the criticism that he perceives in some of the PSOE barons and believes that the Socialists have to make “a reflection” after which he suspects that they will come to the conclusion that they need “a new leadership”.
In the interview, the president of the PP justified his statement that the socialists need a change of leader in that “Sánchez is a worse candidate than the mayors and many socialist presidents who have lost outmatched by sanchismo” and blames the campaign “in code national†developed by the president. Feijóo predicts that Pedro Sánchez will get worse results on 23-J.
It is clear that the leader of the PP will play, in the campaign, the trick of wearing down the President of the Government due to the way in which he has governed with United We Can and the independentistas, including Bildu. This leads Feijóo to consider that “Sánchez does not represent the PSOE, he represents himself”, and for that reason he has called elections, because in his opinion there was fear of “a motion of no confidence” within the PSOE against his leadership.
And he concludes: if he had suffered a defeat like the one Sánchez had, “my answer would be not to stand for election.”
