The new president of the PP, Alberto Nunez Feijoooutlined an ambitious expectation for the Catalan PP in the Conference of the Cercle d’Economia, where he impressed with a speech against polarization and in which he even spoke of Catalan nationality. Feijóo knows that it is very difficult for the PP to win in Spain if it continues with only two Catalan deputies. In other times it had 12, a quarter of those that Catalonia sends to Congress.
But we’re getting into Andalusian campaign and the PP has had to apply the brake when the Andalusian councilor Elijah Bendodo, the party’s new number three, said that Spain is a multinational state. Now the Andalusian voter is the blatant object of desire of the two great parties. And in the same way that -they say- there will be no Sánchez-Aragonès summit until after 19-J, the leadership of the PP is going to tread carefully.
That is why it was not possible to expect many news from the conference of the current Catalan president of the party, Alexander Fernandez, in New Economy Forum. But the surprise was that the presentation was not made by any Catalan close to the PP, which would have been normal, but by the MEP Esteban Gonzalez Ponsone of the new popular leaders closest to Feijóo.
Was Pons’s presence in Barcelona an endorsement of Fernández? Not necessarily, but two messages stood out from his words. One, who would say from the outset, naturally, that the PP had to accept that it had made mistakes. That must be why the Catalan PP has been left with only two deputies in Madrid. But it did not sound like a criticism of Fernández because he emphasized that he was one of the three best parliamentarians he has ever known.
Fernandez was little out of the script. He said that the independence movement has mutated and that it is not going to launch another unilateral declaration of independence now, but that it is trying a constant erosion of the State institutions: Monarchy, justice, Army, CNI & mldr; The ‘procés’ is still alive and the criticisms made of the PP by “the Catalans who also feel Spanish” It is not the lack of empathy with nationalism, but rather that the governments of Spain have not sufficiently defended their rights. To this he attributed the success of Cs, which was seen in the 2017 elections as an “autonomous Spanish movement from Madrid & rdquor; which went down well. Then he has lost his way.
But we are before Andalusian elections and asked about them, Fernández replied: “The first thing to win, then agree & rdquor ;. But they are two things that are not so easy to separate.
González Pons is quite optimistic. He believes that the PP will win well, but that it will not have an absolute majority and may be dependent on Vox that will require a coalition Executive. And even if the PP adds more than the entire left, it will not be easy for Vox to agree to abstain and stay out of the government.
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That is why Moreno Bonilla, the Andalusian president, said on Monday in a long interview with ‘El Confidencial’ that he wanted to govern alone and that he could not rule out that, to achieve it, he would have to go to an electoral repeat. González Pons knows that this is a very rocky path. Could an abstention from the PSOE be the solution? He doesn’t answer, but he does admit that he listened closely to a few words from Inma Grandsonthe candidate for the Por Andalucía list, to the left of the PSOE, who said that they could study an abstention to prevent Vox from entering the Andalusian Government.
Andalusia will be key. Will the PP win? If you do not have a majority, will you agree with Vox, as has happened in Castilla y León? Or, on the contrary, can there be another solution?