The changeover in Genoa has not yet taken place and the first fissures are already beginning to appear. Esteban Gonzalez Pons, trusted leader of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the project that he plans to launch during his time at the head of the PP, differs from the position defended by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and other sectors of the party regarding the relationship with Vox, a formation that he places openly on the “extreme right”. This was expressed by one of the strong men of the new PP this Wednesday on Telecinco, after the president of the Community of Madrid defended yesterday before the national board of directors that can’t be “denied” to those of Santiago Abascal in the new stage that opens after the departure of Casado.
“Vox is not the Popular Party. It is a party of the extreme right. There is an offer in Spain from the extreme right, as in all of Europe, there is an offer from a socialist party and another from the center right,” said the popular MEP, now converted on president of the organizing committee of the extraordinary congress of the PPWhat will be celebrated in Seville next April 1 and 2. Asked about what the PP’s relationship with Vox should be when reaching agreements, and although it has clearly cooled any approach to those of Santiago Abascal, Pons has argued that in politics “complex exercises have to be done” and “balances” to reach agreements.
Ana Belen Ramos
The statements by the vice president of the Popular Party Group in the European Parliament come at a particularly delicate moment for the party, which is fleeing from any attempt at internal division after going through the worst crisis in the history of the party. Alberto Núñez Feijóo already described Vox as “extreme right”, and even raised a cordon sanitaire against the formation in Galicia, where he enjoyed the comfort of the absolute majority.
There is also the circumstance that the president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, has begun negotiations with Vox in the region and does not rule out giving up seats in his future executive to those of Santiago Abascal. The intention of the popular baron is speed up conversations with Vox as much as possible to prevent any agreement in Castilla y León from splashing the new stage of the PP that the Galician intends to inaugurate at the beginning of April, and in which the relationship with Vox is still unknown.
The party refuses to open an ideological debate in the extraordinary congress in April, to shape the strategic and political roadmap of the Galician baron in the national arena. Popular sources link the decision to the lack of time – there is less than a month left for the conclave to be held – and they claim the strategy that was proposed in the Valencia Convention, with which “we all agreed”, to guide the party in the first months of Feijóo’s mandate. So, Pablo Casado drew his own plan regarding Santiago Abascal: the red line was at his entrance in the popular governments.
Pons refuses to expel Casado and Egea
And it has not been the only amendment that the president of the organizing committee of the PP congress has proposed to Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Pons has refused to expel Pablo Casado and Teodoro García Egea from the party, after yesterday the president of the Community of Madrid demanded that the incoming leadership investigate and dismiss all those who “have done the impossible to kick me out of politics and for destroy me personally. Although she did not mention names, one of the missiles was clearly aimed at the former general secretary of the PP.
The MEP, however, has assured that he will ask Teodoro García Egea “not to leave politics” and has trusted that Pablo Casado will be “in the future of the PP”. The words of Pons, who has now become one of the party’s highest authorities, come a few weeks after Alberto Núñez Feijóo appoints a new leadership. The leader himself is one of the names that sound the strongest to assume a position of responsibility in the Galician team. Although at the moment it is not part of his plans to leave Brussels, in the leader’s environment they reiterate that will be made available to the next president of the Popular Party.
