The Vox candidate in Móstoles, Maite López Divasson, following the investiture pact of popular candidate Manuel BautistaPP MÓSTOLES (PP MÓSTOLES)
Saturday June 17th. The PP signs government and investment agreements with Vox in around thirty municipalities in the Autonomous Community of Madrid, including the two most populous municipalities in the region after the capital (Móstoles and Alcalá de Henares). This leaves the fate of almost a million people in the hands of the agreement between conservatives and the far right. But Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the leader of the regional PP and regional president, is trying to downplay the matter. “Often you have to come to an agreement, then life goes on,” he says, as if that were a minor matter. And yes, life goes on. But in a different way. Because these agreements allow the PP to wrest from the PSOE key cities where the left had prevailed, such as Alcalá (197,000 inhabitants). Because these pacts consolidate the extreme right as the third municipal force in the capital region of Spain. And because of these alliances, numerous photos emerge, the candidates smile, the ink of the signatures fresh on the papers… but almost no concrete measure, since in several cities the documents are kept under seven keys, in those in which they knowing it, hardly anyone explains what their content will mean.
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“We don’t accept morality!” roared Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the PP, on Sunday before the PSOE’s criticism of the policy of pacts between the conservatives and the extreme right.
“Congratulations to all the Vox councilors who have sworn their protocol today in the different municipalities of the Autonomous Community of Madrid!” Rocío Monasterio, the regional leader of the extreme right, celebrates the day of the constitution of the city councils on Saturday. “With seriousness, work ethic and the courage to defend ideas, you will do the people of Madrid and all Spaniards a good service,” he affirms. “I am certain!”.
But what ideas did Vox and the PP agree on? Little is known. The content of the agreements has hardly caught on in the most populous cities. And where it did so, it echoed the far right’s slogans about the alleged lack of safety on the region’s roads; the joint strategy to make squatting a major community problem, despite the fact that fewer than 5,000 homes are in this situation; the commitment to lower taxes as the primary economic policy; the intent to downsize the public sector; or the more or less veiled adoption of the Ultras’ anti-abortion ideology.
So it is known that in Galapagar (population 35,000) the partners have agreed to join the municipality to the European Network of Family-Friendly Cities, adopt a new general urban planning plan and also create an anti-graffiti plan and anti-squatter plan, though it is not made clear in the consistory what that will mean. In Torrelodones (25,000) a commitment to “defend the right to life” was made, which popular sources acknowledge is “not developed” or realized, but aims to become an aid to maternity and various associations; another called for an increase in police forces to “defend private property and security”; and another that relies on “defending local traditions.”
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The “defense of our traditions’, to which the Pact Colmenar Viejo (population 54,000) belongs, for example, ties in directly with Vox’s election campaign slogan (‘Take care of yours’). In Aranjuez (population 60,000) they promise to defend “public institutions, the legal system, the crown and the symbols of the state”. In Villaviciosa de Odón (28,000 inhabitants) there is a “baby bonus” consisting of 1,000 euros for each child born and registered in the municipality since January 1, 2024, whose parents must be registered for five years and can only spend the money in the local trade. In Valdemorillo (15,000 inhabitants), it is considered that the city’s persistence is appreciated in the Madrid and Spanish municipal associations and that it “commitment to bullfighting‘, although the City Council recognizes that there is still no economic task, nor any concrete project beyond the promotion of some festivals linked to the city for more than five centuries.
The President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the President of the PP, Alberto Núñez FeijóoTHOMAS COEX (AFP)
The mystery grows in the two most populous cities in the autonomous community of Madrid, after the capital of Spain. In Móstoles (210,000 inhabitants) and Alcalá de Henares (197,000), neither party has responded to this newspaper’s request to publish the document signed by their respective representatives on Saturday. From the first city it became known only through the photo of this company that PP and Vox undertake to conduct an audit of the efficiency of public organizations and bodies (to see whether such can be suppressed). Second, according to the PP, there is little to release as it is a portfolio distribution to which no programmatic agreement has been added yet.
What is certain is the immense gain in power and resources that signing this agreement meant for both partners. The PP, for example, has grown from 82 mayorships in 2019 to 115 in 2023, with Vox being key to their interests in around thirty municipalities.
This balance reflects the leap forward that the extreme right has made in the 28-M municipal elections: it has risen from 140 Madrid councilors in 2019 to 223 now, allowing it to rise from the fifth force in the 28- M to ascend region to be crowned third. A growth that has hardly translated into solo governments (Rascafría), but that is reflected in the leaders shared with the PP, some of which will bear their stamp.
As Alfonso Serrano, the second of Díaz Ayuso’s PP, said of the 67 absolute majorities of his party, the 37 government agreements and the 11 minority governments: “We will govern almost four out of five residents of Madrid throughout the municipality. And he emphasized: “I am convinced that this political change, which has reached many municipalities, will be visible in politics from day one.”
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