Alberto Núñez Feijóo, convinced that he will govern after July 23, is creating a parliamentary group in Congress in his image and likeness, to build an experienced team that will support him from Parliament, in case, as he hopes, he wins the elections and become president of a government that everything indicates would be in the minority.
That is why the president of the PP has placed his hard core as heads of the list of the various constituencies, which entails a renewal of 75% of the candidacies. In particular, Feijóo has changed the heads of the list of 39 of the 52 candidacies presented for the elections.
To achieve this shielding of the parliamentary group, the president of the PP has worked on the preparation of the lists together with two people of his complete confidence, the deputy secretary of organization, who was general secretary of the PP of Galicia during his presidency , Miguel Tellado, whom he has also placed number one for A Coruña, and Diego Calvo, president of the national electoral committee, also Galician.
Among the people he trusts the most who will lead candidacies are the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, who will repeat for La Rioja; Elías Bendodo, who will be number one for Málaga, – in 2019 Pablo Casado placed Pablo Montesinos there -; Esteban González Pons will head the list of Valencia and will have to leave the European Parliament; Juan Bravo will be the one for Sevilla, and Carmen Fúnez, for Ciudad Real.
But the real surprise of the lists have been the candidacies of the PP in Catalonia, especially the head of the Barcelona list, Nacho Martín Blanco, who until Thursday was the spokesman for Ciutadans in Parliament.
The incorporation of Martín Blanco responds to an express wish of Feijóo, who sees in the Catalan politician the figure who best represents the role that the popular leader wants the party to play in Catalonia. Let it be a constitutional formation that represents all those who are not nationalists.
On Thursday Martín Blanco announced his resignation from the organic and institutional positions in Ciutadans and the abandonment of the party, about whose viability he was very pessimistic. At that time he already announced that he did not plan to leave “public life”, which was interpreted as a possibility that he would end up in the ranks of the PP. His words were also interpreted as a possible addition to the popular lists, after the decision of Ciutadans not to present candidacies on 23 July.
The appointment of Martín Blanco upset Ciutadans, and the leadership of the party expressed “its deep discomfort and disappointment” with whom he was a deputy and who has been part of the leadership of the party until Thursday, without at that time having yet announced the his passage to the Popular Party. The reaction of the orange party was full of reproaches: “Now it is better understood why Martín Blanco, in the debate on whether or not we presented ourselves in the general elections, defended just two weeks ago the dissolution of our party and the project politician”.
Also the head of the list for Tarragona comes from Ciutadans. Pere Lluis Huguet was the spokesman for this party in Salou until February. Concepció Veray will go for Girona, and Dante Pérez for Lleida.
Meanwhile, negotiations continue to form the governments of the town councils and communities after the May 28 elections. Yesterday, PP spokesman Borja Sémper, who will go on the PP list for Madrid, with Feijóo, as well as Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, established a red line with Vox. “Someone who is an abuser”, who has been “convicted of abuse” is not “a person who should be engaged in the active exercise of politics”. The leader of Vox in the Valencian Community, Carlos Flores, who Vox would have intended to be part of the Generalitat, was sentenced to a year in prison for sexist violence, specifically for “habitual psychological violence” against his ex-wife and 21 offenses of coercion, insults and vexations.
