The debate between five candidates for the presidency of the it’s hot,
On the set, Alfonso Rueda, the PP candidate and president of the Xunta and the leaders of four left-wing parties. Ana Pontón, from the Galician Nationalist Bloc; José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, of the Socialist Party of Galicia; Marta Lois from Sumar and Isabel Faraldo from Podemos. Vox was left out with the blessing of the Electoral Board.
An apparently favorable configuration for the president of the Xunta. It was him or “the hubbub”, an imitation of the left-wing groups that want to dispossess him from office. But it happens that things don’t always go as planned.
The opposition put President Rueda in more than one trouble, lackadaisical in some of his interventions, when he reproached him for his Government’s lack of ambition to assume new powers, the emigration of the young population, his health policy, the loss of jobs in the sector. industrial or also a tenuous defense of the Galician language. Too much criticism when the absolute majority is not assured according to the polls.
And there the always effective Catalan independence movement appeared. “You will be a branch of the independence movement’s plan B,” Rueda reproached the BNG candidate and main rival to beat in these elections, Ana Pontón. For the president of the Xunta, the leftist alliance seeks nothing more than to obtain one more piece so that the independentistas and Sánchez can remain in power. Galicia as prey.
Pontón, who was very belligerent with Rueda throughout the debate, was agile in his response and asked him if “the waiting lists in Galician healthcare are Catalonia’s fault, or is it Catalonia’s fault that we have less industrial employment?” No, that is a responsibility of your government.”
Rueda, at this point came to associate Pontón with terrorism when he exhibited a photo taken in the Basque Country in which representatives of the BNG, Bildu and ERC gave support, he assured, “ETA prisoners.” Pontón jumped up in a rage. “I’m not going to allow it. The BNG was, is and will be against ETA.”
Rueda also reproached them – in this case the socialist candidate, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro – for the eventual forgiveness of the Catalan debt, which will cost, he said, “four hundred euros for each Galician, even for the children who are now sleeping, for them too.” ”
Besteiro, the socialist candidate, dribbled the accusation and turned it around when he assured that he not only supported the cancellation of the Catalan debt, but also the Galician debt and that of the rest of the communities. “We have to talk to the Government, we have to dialogue. And that’s how you get results.”
Neither Pontón nor Besteiro commented on a possible government pact after the elections. What they did, however, was Marta Lois from Sumar, who from her first intervention made it clear that her group’s will is to make a three-party government possible, with the BNG, the PSdG, and Isabel Faraldo, from Podemos, who, for the On the contrary, he ruled out that possible coalition. At least for now.
Once the debate was closed, two commitments of interest to the Galicians remained on the table: Besteiro’s promise to eliminate the AP-9 toll and the willingness of all parties to address a possible state intervention of Alcoa, the aluminum factory in A Mariña whose closure threatens the loss of more than a thousand jobs. It’s something.
