The president of the Community of Madrid told her leader that she could not continue disassociating the agreement of the judiciary from the debate on the reform of sedition
The communication between Isabel Diaz Ayuso Y Alberto Nunez Feijoo it is very fluid. That communication was fundamental in the operation to overthrow Pablo Casado, in February, and it is on a day-to-day basis, with the decisions that affect the PP. According to El Periódico de Catalunya, from the Prensa Ibérica group, Ayuso spoke on Thursday morning with the leader of his party to ask him not to agree to the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). He could not continue with an open negotiation with Pedro Sánchez, he told him, while the central government continued to confirm that its will is to reform the crime of sedition, to reduce prison sentences and keep the ERC happy. He could not continue disassociating the two issues, he pointed out, as Feijóo’s main collaborators (Cuca Gamarra, Elías Bendodo…) had been doing since the previous Friday.
At half past eight in the afternoon, the PP sent a statement to the media announcing that suspended the negotiations to upgrade the judiciary. The only possible agreement between the Government and the main opposition party was blown up.
It was not the first time that the president of the Community of Madrid advised her leader to break off negotiations to renew the CGPJ, whose mandate has expired almost four years ago. She had told him personally on other occasions these days ago, according to sources familiar with those conversations, and she insisted on this Thursday morning. She did so even before María Jesús Montero, the Minister of Finance, made some ambiguous statements in which she implied that the PSOE was going to diligently take the crime reform to Congress. Ayuso did not know those words, which Montero later qualified, when she made it clear to the press in Ordes (A Coruña) that she knew very well what to do with the CGPJ: “Out of absolute loyalty to my party, I have said what corresponds to whom it corresponds. And that is why it is up to me not to hinder or disturb or be a problem for anyone. I am at the beck and call of everyone.”
In that same intervention before the press, the Madrid leader also once again asked Sánchez to call general elections. The Spaniards, he pointed out, must decide “if they want a country of terrorists in the street and of independence supporters and those convicted of corruption and of pardons, or they want a Spain of freedom and law.”
“In Madrid – he said emphasizing his double power, in the Community and the party – we have it clear. ‘No’ to nationalism, to racism‘no’ to pardonsbecause they will return, that is why they are planning this (…) ‘No’ to the rupture and sale of Spain and always ‘yes’ to freedom, democracy and the law”, he continued. Was it so clear to the party at the national level? The answer, which satisfied him, came hours later when the PP announced the breakdown of negotiations to reach the first major agreement of this legislature.