The PP has not been on vacation, it has been negotiating a possible investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to which the popular president continues to aspire, despite the fact that he does not have the necessary 176 deputies. He believes that his investiture is still possible, because at the moment he has secured more votes than Pedro Sánchez, despite the fact that the president of the central government yesterday stood as a candidate.
The approach of the PP, according to sources from the popular leadership, is that Feijóo is guaranteed 171 or 172 votes, four or five of the required absolute majority, while Sánchez is only guaranteed his 121 deputies, Sumar’s 31 and the 6 by EH Bildu. ERC, PNB and, above all, Junts have not yet pledged their vote.
He is holding out hope, but he is also realistic, to the point that the president of the PP is already talking about the risk of a deadlock, or even a repeat of the elections.
In an intervention in front of his deputies and senators, held yesterday afternoon in Congress, Feijóo acknowledged that there is a “real risk of deadlock”, as well as a “risk of having a weaker and more divided government than the ‘previous legislature’ and a risk that derives from the need to have the support of parties that have the objective of ‘weakening the country or breaking it up’. And what is more serious for the president of the PP, “a risk of institutional wear and tear in Spain”.
With this message, the president of the PP seemed to have assumed that he will not be able to form a government, but, nevertheless, he assured that if the King asks him to do so, he will accept the challenge, and that he is working, as he has done since the elections, to agree on a majority that allows the formation of a stable government, “a government that governs, and not that resists” and that is able to achieve “broad agreements”, “State pacts”.
Feijóo responded in his speech to Pedro Sánchez, who spoke of alleged pressure on the King and of creating problems for him. He rejects that he or the PP are doing it and that “he will have the pressure and the problems (because of Pedro Sánchez)” and not Felipe VI, who is sure that he will act “in accordance with the law, exercising his competences and acting only in the service of Spain”.
The popular leader’s thesis continues to be that he already has consolidated support, while the PSOE, for now, only has the guaranteed vote of Sumar and Bildu.
In his opinion “Spain does not deserve the political situation that the PSOE and 24 other parties have created”, which are what are needed for Sánchez to be president, while he proposes a government resulting from dialogue with constitutionalist parties that will give stability to Spain and stop what has happened in recent years: repeated elections, a motion of no confidence, the inclusion of the extreme left in the Government and the parliamentary support of the pro-independence parties.
The president of the Popular Party presents himself as a “guarantee of stability”, which will end the blocs to be “in favor of the governability of Spain”. However, he insists that there is a risk of deadlock if he is not president, and foresees the possibility of having to repeat elections.
In his speech before the deputies and senators of the PP, Feijóo announced his candidates to preside over the Congress, Cuca Gamarra, who currently has 171 secured supports, and who will face the socialist candidate, Francina Armengol.
For the Senate, the president of the PP has opted for Pedro Rollán, until now deputy secretary of territorial policy, who with great experience in municipal and regional management came to be president of the Community of Madrid for a few months.
In addition, for Congress, the president of the Popular Party has proposed the Galician Marta González and José Antonio Bermúdez de Castro, one of the great connoisseurs of the rules of the Chamber and the electoral law, for the rest of the positions on the Table, as well such as the current secretary, Carmen Navarro, and the energy manager of the parliamentary group, Guillermo Mariscal.
In the Senate the PP has an absolute majority, which is why it is guaranteed the election of Rollán as president, as well as a vice president and two secretaries, which will give it an absolute majority of the Bureau, which is made up of seven members . It is a different situation from that of Congress, which has a Bureau made up of nine members, with four vice-presidents and four secretaries, in addition to the president.
Javier Maroto, who until now was spokesperson, will become vice-president, and Mari Mar Blanco and Eva Ortiz will opt for secretaries.
