While the “progressive bloc” has acted perfectly together, the right-wing bloc has shown its differences, which without being insurmountable, have suffered some disappointment. However, both the PP and Vox assure that they will try to safeguard the agreement that they reached ten days ago, when Vox announced that it will support an investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, without demanding anyone in return, and in the first place the resignation to enter the government .
The fact that the PP has not supported the candidate of the Abascal formation to have a position in the Table, has left the president of the far-right formation “perplexed”, who has recognized that there was no agreement, and therefore the PP “has not broken any pact”, but it supposes “an action that is not very generous”. Not very generous, not only because Vox, “the third force in Congress,” Abascal stressed, has been left without representation in the governing body of Congress, but because of what it means as “contempt for Vox.” Another one, point out sources from this formation, since Feijóo, as soon as he has had the opportunity, has distanced himself from Abascal.
“We are somewhat perplexed because it does not seem that preventing the third political force in Spain from being left out of the Table of the Congress of Deputies is precisely recovering democratic normality and the neutrality of the institutions, and therefore it is very difficult for me to answer,” he admitted. Abascal after asking him if they kept their 33 deputies at the service of the PP for an attempt to investiture Feijóo. From Vox they referred this Thursday to the document sent on August 6 in which it was reported that Vox will support an alternative “for the recovery of the neutrality of the institutions.” The same phrase pronounced by Abascal with which he left his support in the air.
Already from the beginning of the day of constitution of the Congress that ended with the election of Francina Armengol as president of the Chamber, it was seen that the harmony between PP and Vox was not such. As soon as the votes cast began to be read aloud, it was clearly seen that those of Abascal had voted for their own candidate, Ignacio Gil Lázaro, and not for Cuca Gamarra. And here the versions differ. While from the PP it is assured that what had been discussed with Vox was its support for Cuca Gamarra if Armengol did not obtain an absolute majority in the first vote, which showed that there was no agreement with Junts, and therefore Gamarra had the possibility of leaving in the second vote, by simple majority, from Vox it is explained that it was a call early in the morning – in which the PP informed them that they would not give them their votes – that caused the name of the ballot to be changed, in favor of of his deputy Gil Lázaro. The PP’s response was that if there was already an agreement between the PSOE and Junts, it no longer made sense to give up any of their positions on the Board, because nothing was achieved in return.
The PP, led by Cuca Gamarra, maintained that the constitution of the Board was one thing and the investiture another. “They are different things,” Gamarra stressed, and for this reason the PP maintains the confidence that Vox will give its support to Feijóo. Whether he gives it to them or not, the PP leader’s chances of being sworn in remain remote, because the PNV again gave its no to the popular ones. Difficult situation, although Pedro Sánchez does not have any guaranteed support beyond that of Sumar, as this Thursday they took care to highlight from EH Bildu to Junts, through ERC or PNV.
But for Alberto Núñez Feijóo they are very valuable votes, because when he is called for consultations by the King, in the round that will start in the next few days, he will be able to tell him that he has 171 or 172 support, depending on what he does at the end Canaria, while Pedro Sánchez will not be able to say that he has more than 152 insured, which includes the PSOE and Sumar.
With this, Feijóo could go to an investiture, if the King entrusts him with the formation of the government, although it could be unsuccessful, to take advantage of it as the first act of an electoral campaign, as long as Sánchez does not obtain, before, the necessary votes for his .
Abascal, for his part, reserved the sense of his support for this round of contacts. He assured that it will be he himself who will inform Felipe VI who his parliamentary group supports, with an attitude clearly annoyed with the popular ones for having excluded them from the Table.
