The PP “will try to the end” to avoid joint governments with Vox, but it does not rule them out

The PP intends to form governments alone in the five autonomous communities and the thirty provincial capitals in which Vox has the key after the result of the elections on May 28, as the popular spokesperson, Borja, forcefully specified on Monday. Semper. The popular leadership has set this objective in the Executives of Extremadura, the Valencian Community, Aragon, the Balearic Islands and Murcia, although at the same time it is not capable of expressly ruling out that this is going to happen nor does it define it as a red line. “We are going to try until the end to form governments also in the communities only for the PP. This is our commitment and our decision”, Sémper stated at a press conference after the meeting of the PP steering committee. The popular leadership ignores the agreements until they are closed, arguing that the “initiative” corresponds to their regional leaderships.

With 48 days to go before the generals, the popular ones distance themselves from Vox, an uncomfortable partner that hinders their goal of fishing in the most moderate electorate. “In the autonomous communities and in the Government of Spain we are not going to give up governments that provide stability. It is our objective and we believe that it is more than feasible and we are not going to deviate from that objective”, Sémper stated, extending the purpose also to an Executive of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. However, when asked if the PP leadership ruled out joint executives with Vox in the autonomous communities in any case, he has not done so, opting for the formula that “they will try to the end” to avoid it.

The strategy of the leadership of the PP is double to avoid that the pacts with Vox harm their electoral expectations in July. First, try to sleep on the agreements and postpone them as much as possible to try to get them closed after the generals. And then, get out of the way and leave the negotiations in the hands of their regional directorates. “When there are agreements we will establish a position. The initiative has to be taken by our colleagues in the communities. Feijóo trusts their regional presidents”, the PP spokesman stressed on Monday.

The problem for the PP is that, on the one hand, the calendar is going to make it inevitable that some of these agreements will be displayed because in mid-June the constitutions of the City Councils and the autonomous assemblies are celebrated. And, on the other, Vox has the last word, and the leader of the extreme right, Santiago Abascal, presses to negotiate before the general elections. “The Spanish have urgent needs”, he has defended today, suggesting that his party does not intend to compromise with the times of the PP. “We are responsible for building that alternative. We continue to wait patiently, with our hands outstretched and with the only red line of respect for Vox voters”, Abascal stressed.

The PP’s attempt to separate from the extreme right in the midst of the run-up to the general elections on July 23 has also become evident in that Sémper has called Abascal’s party “ultra” for the first time, although he has also extended that qualifier to Bildu and to ERC to try to wear down the President of the Government. “Between Sánchez and Feijóo, the only one who does not want to agree with any ultra of any kind and condition is Feijóo,” defended the spokesman, who maintains that Sánchez is capable of “agreeing with ultras.” “Or is it that Bildu is not an ultra party? Or is it that ERC is not ultra? ”, has been asked. “Where is the bar by virtue of which one is ultra and another is not? How has everything blown up, rationality or common sense? ”, He has questioned rhetorically. In the popular direction they defend in private that they penalize the agreements with Bildu and ERC more than with Vox, and that will be one of their lines of attack against Sánchez, but despite this they also try to avoid associating their image with the extreme right .

The intention of the leadership of the PP is already colliding with that of Vox in some territories, such as the Balearic Islands. In that community, the candidate of the extreme right, Jorge Campos, has warned the popular on Monday that they will have a “firm hand” to represent their voters and their “model” is that of the Government coalition of Castilla y León, which considers “a beneficial model for the majority”. In Aragon, the PP candidate, Jorge Azcón, has asked Vox to abstain from his investiture.

In the popular leadership, two territories are concerned above all: Extremadura, because the popular leader of Extremadura, María Guardiola, has come out very strong in the negotiation with an order to be voted for without entering her Government, despite the fact that she needs their vote in favor to get dressed And in the PP they fear that she will not get the play. And the Valencian Community, because the Vox candidate for vice president, a former Fuerza Nueva militant, was convicted of sexist violence. Asked about it, Sémper has avoided answering the question of whether this candidate’s profile represents a red line for the leadership of the PP.