The left-wing parties tried this morning to blur in the Madrid Assembly the euphoric story of the autonomous community that the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, described the day before. The most belligerent was the spokesperson for Más Madrid, Manuela Bergerot. “It is not bad management, it is social engineering at the service of an ideological project: the public experience is humiliating,” she said of the PP’s Madrid model and Ayuso herself, whom he described as a “comic strip character.” Less belligerent, the socialist spokesperson Juan Lobato accused her of “hating Pedro Sánchez and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero” and questioned her investment promises. The president did not surprise in her successive responses; de Más Madrid insists, as a whole, that it is “totalitarian”, while the response to the PSOE was largely devoted to criticizing state policy.
Bergerot began by pointing out contradictions in the PP’s speech, such as attributing the increase in apartment rents to the Housing Law when price regulation is not operational in Madrid because the regional government refuses to apply it. In this sense, he proposed dedicating 1.8 billion euros to renting 10,000 apartments for 600 euros, which would be achieved by eliminating part of the tax deductions for the rich, which amount to 5,000 million, according to his calculations.
“You are part of the reactionary wave,” criticized Bergerot, who drew a line between the PP of Esperanza Aguirre and that of Ayuso following their corruption cases, recalled the deaths in nursing homes during COVID and concluded that he was at the mercy of a height of “bitumen” in moral terms. In this sense, he referred to the episode of his current chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, calling Dr. Luis Montes, a specialist in palliative care appointed by the PP at the time of his predecessor, a Nazi.
Ana Millán censored, corruption investigation
The spokesman for Más Madrid insisted that Ayuso clarify who paid for the penthouse in which she lives with her boyfriend and in exchange for what and that it dishonoured her for not having forced Ana Millán, number 3 of the PP of Madrid and vice-president of the regional Parliament, to resign for having received commissions in exchange for contracts when he was mayor of Arroyomolinos.
Ayuso mocked: he said that it would be the left that would have to end up apologizing to Millán. Nor is it convenient to ask who paid for the house you are using. “Half of his parliamentary group and his party are going to end up in court,” he said, in a veiled allusion to the counter-complaints that his partner raises against those who ask for clarification on the circumstances of the tax fraud of which he himself is a victim. admitted.
The Madrid president had three-quarters of an hour to respond to the opposition’s respective interventions – half an hour – and it sometimes seemed that she had a few minutes left, which she had to fill with excursions. If Bergerot questioned her pro-Israeli position while the deaths in Gaza are counted in the tens of thousands, Ayuso suggested that the left is temporizing with Afghanistan or Iran. If he criticized the privatization of health and the abuses of public-private collaboration, he objected that RTVE also subcontracts programs to external production companies. He accuses all the spokespeople of Manichaeism, while he manages to maintain a thesis and reverse it a few moments later; for example, when he defended tax cuts. “No rich man steals from the middle class,” he declared at the outset, before castigating the “Catalan nationalist bourgeoisie.” “Intervention is useless,” he said of the housing market, but then boasted about tightening regulations on tourist apartments.
Lobato first acted as a defender of Pedro Sánchez and Ayuso’s “obsession” with him. “His radicalism does not justify his ignorance in foreign policy,” he said of the PP’s and Ayuso’s own position on Venezuela. She also raised doubts about promises made the day before, such as the construction of dozens of health centers, some promised “for 20 years.”
Immigration as a weapon
Lobato focused the beginning of his speech on immigration policy, which the PP and Vox are using against the central government, and reminded the regional president of its importance for pensions. “Stop using immigration as a political weapon. Stop inciting racist speeches. Stop distinguishing between good and bad immigrants” and “treat the minors of this Community with respect and dignity,” he demanded.
He also referred to Ayuso’s remarks on Thursday about the freedom to choose between public and private to attack him for the management of health. “It is not freely chosen, it is a classic inequality,” he said, brandishing the figure of 40% of private health insurance in Madrid. And do you defend equality among Spaniards? He ended his speech by criticizing the “grandiloquent announcements that do not materialize.”
For every reproach Lobato made, the government was mentioned. Regarding immigration, he was disfigured by “Barajas’ inhuman lack of control.” While he questioned the reform of the university law, he mentioned Begoña Gómez without naming her, accusing her of having “taken advantage” of her association with the Complutense University.
Vox, agree that Sanchez is “the worst”
The debate continued with the intervention of Rocío Monasterio, from Vox. The spokesperson for the ultra party said she agreed with Ayuso that Sánchez is the “worst”, but criticized him for the agreements between the PP and the PSOE in the General Council of the Judiciary and their legislative role in limiting transparency. “He has not been accountable”, “he has not said anything about the real state of the region” and “he has only used triumphalism and personal ambition”, he criticized. Ayuso distanced himself from immigration issues in a response in which he once again had all the time he needed; he ended up singing the praises of Madrid wine. There was still time for the PP to intervene, which gave rise to a new series of attacks on the opposition and Pedro Sánchez.
