“I recognize that we have a great communication deficit. And it needs to be improved. “I recognize it.” This phrase was uttered last Tuesday by the leader of the PP, Elías Bendodo, at an information event organized in Madrid by an association of radio and television journalists. A “general reflection,” explains their team, which speaks more of a historical issue of the PP than of a specific circumstance. Almost at the same time, the secretary general, Cuca Gamarra, was starring in her own event in the presence of the media. That same morning, the parliamentary spokesman, Miguel Tellado, held a press conference. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, from the Canary Islands, closed the series of televised messages before eating.
The media agenda of that day is no exception within the PP. In fact, many voices warn, more or less discreetly, against the communication chaos that has been imposed on Feijóo’s party since the end of the last political year, during the summer and at the beginning of the current one. The daily accumulation of PP spokespeople, some officials and others who act as such, is a constant. And for a long time, voices have been raised to demand that this situation be corrected.
A leader sums it up in one sentence: “We have no communication policy.” A phrase that can also be heard, with little or no variation, from the party’s technicians. Because the problem, as the sources consulted within the party itself point out, is twofold. On the one hand, the evidence that some of the main leaders of the PP compete to gain television minutes and media presence, either to get across a message that, according to them, does not arrive with enough force, or to cover up acquired commitments or to try to protect your position within the party. The internal reproach is that no one can or wants to stop the spiral.
A recent example. The PP began the political journey by calling an extraordinary plenary session in the Senate to question the Vice-President of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, on the financing agreement for Catalonia. On Wednesday 4, Montero went to the Upper House, where he hoped to debate with the spokesperson, Alicia García. But the woman from Avila did not participate. Senators Gerardo Camps and José Manuel Barreiro shared their time. Even the secretary of the group, Javier Arenas, intervened due to a regulatory problem. Garcia, no.
Sitting in the front row was Bendodo himself, who left the Chamber in the middle of the session. As he left, television and radio stations stopped him in the Senate corridor to ask him a series of questions on various current affairs. At the same time, at the national headquarters on Genova Street in Madrid, Gamarra was speaking to the media during a break in a meeting he was holding with Treasury advisers.
The PP leadership assures that this is the outlined communication strategy, that its intention is to multiply the voices to enter the different audiovisual media, but also to have space in publications or specialized sections.
“We try to address as many issues as possible,” says the PP’s communications department. “Perhaps we are giving too many messages, but that does not mean that there is counter-programming,” the same sources add.
But in the PP, some see many leaders “joining hands” to avoid losing their position. Doubts about the need to call an ordinary congress or not, as reported by El Periódico, to reformulate the ideological line of the party and address the changes in leadership that can only be made in said body, such as the General Secretariat. The last congress of this type was held in 2017, again with Mariano Rajoy at the head of the PP and the government.
Contradictions in the message
Beyond the counter-programming, the second problem that arises from within the party itself is that the message that one wants to convey arrives distorted by the difference in presentation, while it is not directly contradicted.
A recent example from last week. On Monday, Borja Sémper said that Begoña Gómez, the wife of the President of the Government, would not be summoned “in any” commission of inquiry. A few days later, Tellado contradicted him and opened the door to the Madrid PP to call her to testify in the Regional Assembly. This commission of inquiry will begin its work before the end of the month.
The abundance of spokespeople and messages was counterbalanced by the blocking of journalists during the meeting between Feijóo and the regional barons to agree on a minimum common position on the reform of regional financing. The meeting took place last Friday and there were 15 consecutive appearances before the media. No journalist could ask questions.
One of those present at the meeting, the president of Murcia, Fernando López Miras, explained this Thursday in an interview with El País: “If the event has a clear message, sometimes it is understood that to better transmit this message, ‘We have been working on it for so long, it is better that there is only one communication.'”
A thesis that has only been applied, at a minimum, in the face of the financing reform. This is not the case in areas such as immigration. In recent weeks, in Genoa, they have chosen to give more presence to leaders other than the most usual ones. This September, the usual solo press conferences of Borja Sémper, on Mondays at the national headquarters, are shared, either with the deputy secretary of Economy, Juan Bravo, or with that of Education, Ester Muñoz. The head of Mobilization and Digital Challenge, Noelia Núñez, also had her opportunity this Thursday.
Despite the “underhand” doubts that the strategy arouses among some leaders, those who are responsible for implementing it do not seem to have any intention of changing it.
