The pressure is increasing in the pressure cooker that the Catalan PP has become since the president Pere Aragonès announced the early call for elections for next May 12. Nervousness is growing over the possible agreement with Ciudadanos and the positions for and against Alejandro Fernández, leader of the PP in Catalonia, repeating as head of the list. This Monday, Fernández received explicit support from Esperanza Aguirre. But Alberto Núñez Feijóo avoids the push of both parties, and will wait for the negotiation with Ciudadanos to conclude before announcing the name of his candidate for the elections.
In the cabinet of the head of the Popular Party, they state that their “priority” is to integrate Ciudadanos under their acronym to show an “image of unity” as a “reference of constitutionalism” in the face of the amnesty supported by the PSC. The conversations continued over the weekend between the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, and her counterpart in the orange formation, Adrián Vázquez, to reach an agreement while support grows in Catalonia, from militants and councilors with a campaign that has the label Me with Alejandro. The Catalan PP has 105 local boards and 70% have supported Fernández, according to party sources. Constitutionalist entities in favor of bilingualism or the youth group Is over They have shown their support.
Feijóo’s entourage completely rules out a coalition with Ciudadanos in both the Catalan and European elections. And he seeks the dissolution of the orange formation as a party before giving up positions on his list. “It is not being easy to convince them,” say sources from the popular leadership. The deadline to register applications ends on April 8. The polls currently leave Ciudadanos without representation in the Parliament, but Feijóo seeks with this strategy to send a message that “transcends Catalonia”, “grows in both directions” and takes advantage of the few remains that the former party of Inés Arrimadas still retains. . “Catalonia must accept that stopping the process requires not trusting the PSC, Esquerra, or Junts, which are three legs of the same project of institutional rupture,” Feijóo expressed this Monday in Madrid.
The Ciudadanos leadership is currently resisting its disintegration, according to executive sources. They also do not agree with MEP Adrián Vázquez occupying a seat in the European Popular Party group instead of sitting with the liberals of Renew. One of the conditions of Genoa. Other party sources in Catalonia assure that the popular party wanted Ciudadanos to be the one to ask, before the gallery, for a “consensus candidate” other than Fernández to close the pact. A scenario similar to that experienced in the Basque Country during the talks for a joint coalition of PP and Ciudadanos, when Alfonso Alonso stepped aside. Carlos Carrizosa, president of the parliamentary group in Catalonia, stated a week ago that they would attend the elections “all in” convinced that they have electoral space.
In parallel, Fernández maintains his position against Feijóo. “Camrón remembered it: you have to be Like wicker, the air sways it, but it remains firm”, he wrote on Sunday on the social network X (former Twitter) with irony. “I’m worried about the bad results, not the tweets,” responds a source from the party leadership. In the national leader’s cabinet they guarantee that, once the pact with Ciudadanos has been forged or not, they will study with the data on the table which is the most suitable candidate. And they will probe the internal pulse in the face of a particularly important decision. While the party speculates, with the label Me with Alejandroactivists and councilors from the municipalities of l’Hospitalet del Llobregat, Sabadell, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Sant Feliu (Barcelona), Salou y El Vendrell (Tarragona) or Figueres (Girona) have expressed their support online to the spokesperson of the PP in the Parliament before the public silence of the most relevant positions.
The movement in the network, in a vertical party and subject to the designs of Genoa, has acquired relevance and confirms the certain division of the party between the base and the leadership more aligned with Genoa. The gap was evident in September when Feijóo explored a pact with Junts censored by Fernández. The president gave a conference then supported the militancy and indifference of the leadership. The investiture pact between the PSOE and Junts opened a truce and left the conflict that has resurfaced in limbo. Before 23-J, Fernández refused to head the list because he was convinced that the best way to defend Catalonia is to stay in the community and go to Madrid as many constitutionalist politicians did. The PP, in fact, began to come back after two to six seats and surpass ERC and Junts in absolute numbers. Esperanza Aguirre gave him her support this Monday: “I am a supporter of Alejandro Fernández. He seems to me to be a person who is a magnificent parliamentarian, who is a very rigorous man, who is a defender of the Constitution and the best candidate that Catalonia will have.”
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