Vox has fully extended its hand to the Popular Party to negotiate pacts with which a right-wing bloc “puts an end to left-wing policies” at the local, regional… and state levels. This is the offer of the leader of the extreme right, Santiago Abascal, who for the moment has avoided marking a single red line for the negotiations, in which – as he himself revealed – the teams of the two parties are already working “with the hope of finding responsibility on the other sideâ€.
Abascal, after the euphoria of the results achieved on Sunday, greatly lowered the tone against the popular leader, who achieved high decibel levels during the campaign, when he went so far as to say that the popular leader had to choose between Vox or the PSOE. Some words that were left to the seed, since Feijóo did not even pronounce the name of Santiago or the surname of Abascal. Nor did he do it on election night, in which he referred to Vox as “the second party”. Until yesterday
The president of the Popular Party reported from the party’s national headquarters that he had telephoned the leader of the far-right. Both congratulated each other in a telephone conversation for the good data obtained and agreed to speak “in the next few days” with a view to negotiating possible pacts after the elections that have consolidated Vox as the third Spanish political force. And this settlement is the main card that the Vox team will play when negotiating.
According to party sources, the backbone of the talks will be the construction of an alternative with the Popular Party. For this reason, Vox will give “some guidelines” to the regional directorates of those territories in which far-right deputies will be needed for the investitures of the next PP regional presidents. The same sources assure that it will be the same speech for all territories, so there will be no room “for gifts or blackmail” depending on the territory.
From Vox, they insist on the idea that the PP has “different positions” depending on the territory. “Which of the 17 PP are we talking to? Who is on the other side; who is the interlocutor”, asked Abascal during the closing of the campaign in Toledo a few days ago.
What Abascal did remember was that the former Galician president has offered a pact to the Socialists to govern the list with the most votes. And this offer has not yet been taken off the table, so he urged Feijóo to decide whether to opt for the option of the list with the most votes or for the negotiations with Vox. And he sent him a warning in case he decides on the first of the options: this would leave his candidate, MarÃa Guardiola, without the presidency of Extremadura. The PSOE was the party with the most votes and the Popular could only govern with a pact with the extreme right.
Abascal did not review one by one, but Sunday’s results show that the far right will be decisive for the formation of a government in 17 provincial capitals and six autonomous communities.
