The PP accepted that in the agreement document with Vox in the Valencian Community, it spoke of “domestic violence” instead of “male violence”, as had already happened in the pacts signed first in Andalusia four years ago and then in Castile and Leon But they maintain that this has not been to the detriment of either equality policies or the fight against gender-based violence. What they did not expect was a statement like that of the number two of Santiago Abascal’s party in Valencia, who denied the existence of gender violence, and when he wanted to rectify it, the damage was already done.
This situation worries the PP, even though its leadership is convinced that its electorate has assumed the pacts with Vox, some because they agree and others because they see them as a lesser evil to govern. The populists believe that the controversy over sexist violence will not deprive them of votes, but there is a certain fear that it could mobilize the left, until now demobilized and “entangled in internal debates”.
The PP attributes the fact that Vox was forced to remove him to the veto they themselves imposed on Carlos Flores, sentenced twenty years ago to a year in prison for sexist violence due to the habitual insults to his ex-wife. But the PP also know that there is not much left until the elections, that there will not be time to demonstrate that the policies against gender violence are not affected by their governments, and that is why all their leaders came out on Friday en masse to discredit the words of the Valencian leader of Vox and categorically affirm that “there will not be a step back in the fight against gender violence”.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Cuca Gamarra, Borja Sémper and even the Valencian María José Catalá were clear in their messages. The new mayoress of Valencia will govern in a minority, without including Vox in her government: “Not one step back in the rights won and in the fight against gender violence. Nor any more lessons on this matter”, said Catalá in his inauguration speech.
In any case, what has not gone down well with the PP is that the left has been given an argument that can be used to hide the situation of division that they observe between the socialists and also between Podemos and Sumar. All in all, the populists trust that this obstacle will be diluted during the campaign, but they know that it can serve as an argument for the left.
The PP will ensure that the debate takes other paths, in which there are no black holes that could go against a campaign that the popular people have a lot of thought for and that they want to focus on the debate on the economy and the reversal of the laws that Feijóo wants to “repeal”, which will be translated into the reform of the trans or Historical Memory law. Thus, Feijóo asked yesterday from Celadas (Terulo) to “culminate on July 23 the change” started on May 28 and make “a quiet and calm, but intense change” a reality.
