When Alberto Núñez Feijóo declared that he was leading a “free project” and “without ties”, the hard wing of the PP had already marked more than half a dozen times the path that its opposition strategy should follow. When he denied being “a politician of fast-moving politics” or “instant fashion”, his media inspirations had already brought him attention several times. And when he explained that his objective was “to unite Spaniards around a project which “does not show, does not divide, does not distribute cards for nothing and excludes no one”, the ideological fabric of the FAES told him had already given the yellow card several times. Hence so much back and forth, so many plot twists and so many fluctuations.
Nothing like improvisation, the absence of a medium term and adaptation to the situation to conquer current events, but also the lack of a fixed course to convince locals and foreigners. This is largely happening in Feijóo’s PP, which, more than two years after being proclaimed president of the party, still has serious difficulties in strengthening its leadership.
When it’s not Aznar, it’s Esperanza Aguirre, it’s Ayuso, it’s the employers’ association or it’s one of its media references… There is always someone who riot every time it crosses a line of purity of neoliberalism. This has happened again with the apparent social turn with which Feijóo intends to convince the electorate that he did not reach in the last general elections, since this week the so-called party hawks have become agitated again. So much so that a popular leader ironically compares his own party “to the jungle” because “if you are careless, a snake will bite you and you will be out of action”.
We understand who, in his opinion, is the snake and who is the one with teeth. And it also explains why Feijóo strives to one day make friends with the best of the European far right, as he demonstrated with photographs in Rome with Meloni; another compares Pedro Sánchez to the dictator Franco and, in the next, he announces a strategic change to give a social twist to his project and make yet another attempt to place himself at the center of the public agenda.
Nothing. There is no way. The noise has once again changed sides and while the barons of the PP march one after the other and in good harmony through the Moncloa, moving away from the official line of Genoa, the buzz of the hard wing of the party is constant so that Feijóo does not abandon the raca- Due to the amnesty, persist in making Sánchez an emulator of Maduro and not divulge the story of the fiscal independence of Catalonia nor the bills paid by the current government to the independence movement.
The first to take the plates out of the pot genovitis This is Esperanza Aguirre, of whom we cannot say that she enjoys any prestige among the bases or among the electorate, but she has a constant media speaker in the televised debates, which greatly disturbs the national leaders. So, while Feijóo was willing, for the first time, to sit down with the “social agents” and take a position with the coalition government regarding the reduction of the working day, albeit with the formula of concentrating it over four days (which is not the same), the former Madrid president was critical and publicly criticized the fact that the PP had decided to “take the flags of the left and defend them” after having carried out some surveys.
“I do not believe in the moral superiority of the left, I believe in that of liberalism,” warned Aguirre before reprimanding the leadership for refusing to lead “the cultural battle” and for listening to what citizens want instead to tell them “what”. This is what we think Spain needs. Aguirre, like Ayuso, encourages Feijóo to follow the example of Javier Milei and undertake, like the Argentine, a hard crusade to reduce public spending to a minimum without worrying about what everyone considers a trifle of the State- providence.
Feijóo’s timid effort to take the initiative in social matters which until now had no weight in his roadmap, just like the proposal for a conciliation law, came up against the most extreme sector , the one led by the president of Madrid, who considers “an error to have entered into a framework, that of social democracy, which does not interest the conservative voter at all and which, in addition, can make Vox grow .” So, according to popular sources, he made it known to Feijóo himself this week.
Ayuso closely follows the doctrine of his main radio reference, Federico Jiménez Losantos, for whom Feijóo’s new strategy is, in addition to being “suicidal”, an event similar to that of Feijóo when he decided during the convulsive congress of PP of 2008 to separate from the antinationalist position adopted by María San Gil and the evolution towards centrism. The hawks liked the housing proposal much more, which mainly consists of lowering taxes, liberalizing land and “eliminating bureaucracy” to build up to 200,000 homes. No price caps or limits on purchases by vulture funds as other countries have successfully done to stop the upward trend in prices. After criticizing its conciliation plan, the leadership returned to the orthodoxy of liberalism with an initiative aimed at protecting owners against “squatting and squatting”, increasing the supply of rental housing through tax incentives for landlords and to remove rent caps.
The idea of transversality is an invention that does not sit well with the ideological right and any initiative that seeks to encourage or insinuate the slightest desire for dialogue – and not just agreement – will be vilified and labeled little more than communist, like whether Feijóo was suspected of something that had little to do with the left.
Among the barons who gravitate outside the Madrid nationalism of the M-30, opinions are divided, but the majority think more in terms of territories, where questions like amnesty do not move the vote, than in what murmurs sounders in Feijóo’s ear. . In fact, the general trend in the last two weeks has been to attend Sánchez’s call to Moncloa to talk about issues related to their regions, including financing, despite Genoa’s instruction that this subject should be addressed only within the Budgetary and Financial Policy Council.
The Valencian Carlos Mazón even exchanged his impressions with Pedro Sánchez on the debt relief of his Community, which the national leaders had expressly vetoed. He also requested, like López Miras of Murcia, the establishment of a leveling fund for underfinanced autonomous communities, thus advancing a possible common front also with Andalusia and Castile-La Mancha, which have resources below average. Something with which the President of the Government agreed.
In short, between hawks and barons, Feijóo has no one to share his new social score if, at this stage, of course, we can say that, in the face of so many zigzags and so many investigations, there is someone capable to decipher it. This is perhaps why he does not intend to convene an ordinary congress of the PP, where the ideological and programmatic debates of the parties really take place.
