For the next two weeks, the leadership of the opposition to the government of Pedro Sánchez will be exercised from Galicia. Alberto Núñez Feijóo knows that the regional elections in Galicia are crucial for his future and has therefore decided to settle in his country as if he were on a trip back in time – he has been in the last three elections – the candidate for the Xunta presidency. The leader of the PP landed in the Galician election campaign with his own electoral caravan and will only return to Madrid to take part in the plenary sessions of the Congress, his team explains. His goal is to travel through rural Galicia, city by city – with up to four events per day – to help his dolphin, Alfonso Rueda, not to lose strength.
From Galicia, Feijóo will spread the messages about what is happening in Madrid, which will inevitably give the Galician campaign a national focus. The PP is shaped by the experience of the last general elections, in which several pollsters made it believe that it had conquered La Moncloa, and in the end that was not the case. Nobody trusts the polls anymore, so we have to do the rest. Given what could happen, Rueda has asked the President of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, for help to mobilize the right and cut off Vox.
Feijóo's direct team tries to prevent this media representation from conveying an image of nervousness and assures that they do not see the absolute majority in Galicia at risk. “Our candidate [Alfonso Rueda] “It arises in a good demographic context,” they argue. The starting point is the 42 seats that Feijóo achieved in 2020, four above the absolute majority; In order to enter the opposition, Rueda would have to leave five seats behind. “That would mean losing one per province and another in one of the four. In which province will we lose two seats? “We don't see it,” they confide in the hard core of the PP leader, while also emphasizing that their polls reflect high voter loyalty for the PP while that of the PSOE is low.
But Feijóo doesn't want to risk being fooled by the polls “again,” so he dons the suit of a shadow candidate for the presidency of the Xunta de Galicia, even if in doing so he somehow leaves the leadership of the opposition in Madrid exposed. “Why will the media condemn him the day after the February 18 elections? “For these fifteen days as opposition leader or for the result of the Galician elections?” they ask the PP leader's team to justify the strategy. Feijóo is clear that he cannot fail in his home country and is prioritizing these elections over all other issues, although the political situation in Madrid is complex and uncertain and the drafting of the amnesty law is progressing.
However, the PP keeps several cartridges in the chamber to emphasize the image of the government's “weakness”, management sources emphasize. On the immediate horizon (still undated) is the adoption of the deficit and debt targets, which depends on the absolute majority of the PP in the Senate and which the Popular Party can drop to deal a blow to the executive of Pedro Sánchez.
Renewal of the CGPJ
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In the middle of the Galician election campaign, on the 12th, the second meeting between the PP and the government must also take place in Brussels to negotiate the renewal of the General Council of Justice, another hot potato for Feijóo. In recent days, the popular leader has emphasized his messages of determination, enshrining that he will only agree on the names of the new members if a change in the Council's election method is agreed at the same time. “Nothing closes until everything closes,” he concluded. The PP does not want to give the impression that it is putting together the government before the elections in Galicia, and Feijóo is under pressure from Vox and important parts of the right – such as the Madrid PP – not to agree with Sánchez, so an agreement is not possible is expected (if available) before February 18th.
Despite its weakness, Vox will continue to influence many of the PP's decisions in the election campaign. The popular parties must leave no room for the extreme right in Galicia so that Vox does not lose the valuable 3% of votes that the polls give it. To achieve this, Rueda has asked for help from Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who will play an important role in the final stretch. The President of the Community of Madrid will hold a rally in Vigo on the 15th and an informative breakfast in Sanxenxo (Pontevedra) on the 16th, just 48 hours before the elections, the Madrid PP confirmed. Your task will be to neutralize those of Santiago Abascal and mobilize the right.
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