Those who have followed other autonomous electoral campaigns in Galicia say that this is one of the strangest they remember. The main party, the PP, with four consecutive majorities behind it, is dragging events, trying to cover the waterways that are opening here and there, without much order.
It is true that it remains the winning party, but something is wrong in the enormous machinery of the Popular Party in Galicia.
In this context, the revelations, from sources at the highest level in the party, about the talks with Junts, prior to the failed investiture of Feijóo in the summer with the recognition that there was on the table, for 24 hours, the law of Amnesty and the admission that a pardon could be an acceptable way for the case of Puigdemont in certain circumstances, have only added anger to this unique campaign in which, until two days ago, the reproaches to Pedro Sánchez for negotiations with the Catalan pro-independence parties were a dish served at the meetings of Rueda and Feijóo, morning, afternoon and night.
The protagonist of this mess, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, did not deny any of the facts yesterday and limited himself, in a contact with the press in Ferrol, to stating that he said and continues to say no to amnesty and pardons because ” today the conditions” that the PP would have put on the table to tackle its reconciliation plan in Catalonia are not met. The leader of the PP accused the socialists of “muddling the campaign, something – he assured – that we already know they know how to do”. What Feijóo did not explain is why these revelations have taken place now and from sources within the PP itself.
Feijóo, who yesterday closed his parallel campaign in a meeting in Outeiro del Rei – a municipality where the PP sweeps the municipal elections with 60% of the votes, but who yesterday did not manage to fill all the seats arranged to listen to the great cap–, avoided making any allusion to the controversial story. His attention was focused on the minister Grande-Marlaska, who asked for his resignation for the murder of two civil guards in Barbate while he reproached the president of the Spanish Government who, in mourning for this attack suffered by the agents, I went “to a film festival”. He was referring to the Goya gala.
Nor did the candidate for the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, address this issue in his meetings. They assure their team that the campaign will not change. They have other concerns: the hook of the Galician Nationalist Bloc and the demobilization of their own electorate.
Those who will try to take advantage of the scenario that has been discovered this weekend are the socialists. Yesterday, the candidate of the Socialist Party of Galicia, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who for the second time accompanied him in this campaign, did not neglect the issue. His argument can be summed up in one word: “hypocrisy”. His campaign team believes that the mess can, above all, demotivate PP voters. “Everything we know now should concern them.”
Meanwhile, the BNG, oblivious to what Ana Pontón once described as “Madrilenian battles”, continues its upward course, convinced that these controversies only benefit its discourse centered on Galicia.
And finally, at the other end of the Peninsula, Junts continues without opening its mouth and it is Esquerra Republicana that regrets for the umpteenth time that its competitor in the Catalan pro-independence galaxy is taking the initiative despite having overturned the Amnesty law and with the complicity of the socialist party.
