The election call announced yesterday by the President of the Spanish Government caught the leader of the PP off guard, but only because of the date. Immediately, he threaded the needle and three hours later appeared before the media making a solemn statement, with a flag of Spain and another of Europe. Behind the lectern from which he spoke, a new slogan appeared: “Spain prepared”.
The announcement took the president of the PP to the office. He listened to it with the chief of staff and the communications director, just before the steering committee meeting began. He then prepared the statement, where the leader of the PP already advanced where he intends to go in the pre-campaign and the upcoming election campaign. On Sunday, he said, “a new political cycle began, and I call on all of you from this very moment to culminate it on July 23”.
The message of the president of the Popular Party gives continuity to what he launched on Sunday, in the national direction: “sanchism is KO”, but, as Feijóo said yesterday, “sanchism has not yet been repealed. Spain is invited to do so in 54 days.” Then, “he will have to express clearly which path he wants the nation to take in the next four years”. Feijóo requested the support of the citizens: “I am asking right now for a clear, forceful and incontestable majority to start a new course”.
The leader of the PP Feijóo wants to pretend that he is delighted with the call, “The better, the sooner the better”, he said, even if it is in the middle of a holiday month like July. However, the PP is asking why July 23, why now, and not leave it for later. The only conclusion they reach is that it may have an internal party explanation. The call blocks the internal contestation of the barons and mayors who lost their positions on Sunday. They insist on the thesis since they learned that Sánchez will not convene the federal committee until the 10th, when Feijóo will attend before his equivalent, tomorrow.
The PP also remembers that Sánchez always tries to cover up the things that are not favorable to him with something more surprising. Call for elections so that the results of 28-M are not discussed.
The socialist leader is not interested in talking about the defeat, “but I am”, said Feijóo, who recalled that the PP has won the municipal elections: it has won in 31 provinces and many other capitals, in addition to nine autonomous communities .
The leadership of the PP also suspects that one of the arguments being studied for the electoral call is that the call to the polls coincides with the formation of PP governments with alliances with Vox. But the popular answer is clear. “The PSOE will also agree with Bildu in Navarre” and in some cities, the effect is the same, in the opposite direction. In addition, they emphasize, if they want to take the campaign message there, why not in September, when the governments are already formed. The PSOE, they think, could find it easier to point them out.
Feijóo continues not wanting to talk about pacts with the newly conquered governments until the PP board of directors is held today, but yesterday he already advanced, in questions from journalists, that it will be left to the territories to draw up the proposed pacts. It will not be a statewide agreement.
In fact, Feijóo assured the press conference, Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, called him yesterday to congratulate him on the results, the only national leader who did so, and they did not talk about pacts.
The president of the PP will insist that it is he and only he who personifies the change of cycle: “May 28 was the most powerful expression, and at the same time the cleanest, of the great desire for change that exists in society”, a society to which he offers “a prepared government” and, so that it can be effective, “I ask my country for an opportunity in the name of moderation, serenity and institutional respect”. Feijóo makes sure to interpret the will of the citizens when he states that “we must leave behind five years to forget” and, as if he were already in the campaign, he addressed the Spanish directly: “Today I ask for the trust of the citizens to be the next president of the Government of “Spain”.
