The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, presenting the election program for May 28th. David Mudarra (PP)David Mudarra / PP
Presenting the PP’s supporting program for May 28 this Sunday, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo urged voters from other parties to find ideological discrepancies with their electoral commitments. “To everyone who voted for another party, what part of this program do you dislike?” Feijóo challenged, aware that the document avoids ideological puddles because it is designed to fish in the most centrist electorate, where the majority of the Spanish population lives in . “This is a program that goes beyond the PP,” defended the popular leader, before committing to full compliance. “Every word, every tense, every qualifier is thought through. And it’s designed to deliver,” he affirmed. The leader of the Conservatives finds it easier to get involved with every word of a text that is not very concrete. The PP program also avoids reference to abortion and drops the proposal on the list with the most votes.
Other unspecified tax cuts. The most ideological part of the text is the fiscal one, where the PP insists on a policy of reducing the tax burden, albeit “always within the framework of fiscal stability and sustainable public finances”. The PP undertakes to “proceed with the reduction of property tax” without further specification and to further deflate the income tax rate “as soon as the legal possibility exists, whereby above all middle and low incomes should be considered”. without specifying from which income class. The PP also talks about introducing – but does not say which – rebates on the tax on mechanical traction units according to the type of fuel and characteristics of the engines and their impact on the environment; and business tax for companies that are making losses, those that increase the average number of permanent contracts, and those that install renewable energy systems. The vernacular also generically commit to the “advance” in reducing inheritance and gift taxes and inheritance tax.
“Balance” in languages. The PP ensures that it guarantees the right to education in Spanish and in the other co-official languages in the Autonomous Communities “under the principle of balance”. The PP does not specify what it would do with systems such as that of education in Catalonia or linguistic immersion in Catalan. The vernacular proposes a “language plan” that favors “formulae that promote mutual respect and the knowledge of all official languages”.
Full compliance with the pact against sexist violence. The PP provides in the program that “the state pact must be further developed [contra la violencia de género] completely”, which can pose a problem if the population has to agree to Vox in some territories, since the extreme right denies the existence of sexist violence and is the only party that has not signed this agreement state. The PP also reaffirms its commitment to the “fight against climate change”, another ideological discrepancy with Vox, with a denial bias.
Silence on abortion and the most voted list. In the 112 pages of the programme, the PP avoids any reference to abortion, while only talking about measures to boost the birth rate. Although the regulations on voluntary abortion are national, the governments of the autonomous communities can influence their enforcement within the limits of their powers in the field of health. In the PP’s only joint government with Vox, that of Castilla y León, the partners have recently engaged in a bitter controversy over Santiago Abascal’s party’s attempt to force women who want an abortion to listen to the fetal heartbeat, a measure the PP withdrew amid heated controversy.
The PP did not include Feijóo’s announced proposal to govern the list with the most votes in its election manifesto. Although this measure would require the reform of a state law – the LOREG – it affects at least the city councils directly, according to the institutional plan presented by the PP leader weeks ago in Cadiz. The People’s Party has excluded her from her voting duties for the local elections in May.
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State agreements in complex matters. The program raises several state pacts on issues where the PP avoids defining itself, such as water, given disputes between different territories over transfers; and immigration, an issue on which the populace of Vox is under a lot of pressure. In the text, the PP defends the “regular labor market-related migration flows, which, far from being a problem, are a source of economic, cultural and social wealth”, while campaigning for “the return of immigrants to a situation of irregular administration”.
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