«He is one of the best heads that the PP has had throughout its history. And, furthermore, a man of integrity and of his word. This is how a member of the National Executive Committee of the PP describes Gabriel Elorriaga Pisark, one of the main exponents of “Aznarism”, as well as the son of a founder of the formation.
As LA RAZÓN has learned exclusively, for days he has been acting as the new president of the think tank that Alberto Núñez Feijóo He pushed to develop his government program. His particular factory of proposals and reforms: Reformismo21, which was led by the former president of RENFE, Pablo Vazquezdied in August. «Gabriel and Pablo had a magnificent personal and professional relationship»they point out from the party. As soon as he arrived at the foundation, Vázquez appointed Elorriaga as patron, who will now succeed him as president, pending the appointment being formalized.
Trained as a lawyer, he is also a Treasury Inspector and State Auditor. In politics, he played a key role in the first government of José María Aznaras deputy director of the President’s cabinet between 1996 and 2000, the year in which he became Secretary of State for Territorial Organization.
With a marked technical profile, its natural habitat is the forge, where ideas are manufactured. In the PP organizational chart he has held relevant positions: he coordinated the Programs and Studies area in Aznar’s last year. Mariano Rajoy He appointed him his campaign director for the 2004 general elections. Later, he was Secretary of Communication. Until Elorriaga, after the 2008 electoral defeat, raised his voice against the party’s strategy, asked for a change in leadership that did not occur and, consequently, decided to leave the leadership.
Even so, he continued in Congress as a deputy. He returned to have a leading role thanks to Cayetana Álvarez de Toledowhich placed him at the head of the legal advice of the parliamentary group in his brief period as spokesperson. Pablo Casado It incorporated it into its lists in the 2019 electoral repetition and won a seat in 2020, after the departure of García Tejerina. However, his prominence faded when Álvarez de Toledo fell from grace.
In 2023, he left the Chamber. He was in 21st place in Núñez Feijóo’s candidacy, and did not get a seat. Then, he returned to his activity as a technical advisor at the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Although he has always maintained the link with ideas. Through FAES, Aznar’s foundation, of which he is also a trustee. And, since its beginnings, of Reformism21.
As the new president of the PP foundation, Elorriaga not only returns to the front line, but Feijóo places him at the forefront of a key pillar of his political project. In recent years, the foundation has been a decisive ideological support. It has served as a bridge between the party and civil society for the development of proposals.
The day Feijóo released Reformismo21, he made his intentions clear: «I do not hide from you that my final objective is to condense everything that comes out of this Foundation into a project for a hypothetical government. “I want my government to be able to work from the first minute.”
From the beginning, the mission of the foundation has been to transform expert analysis into concrete proposals that can be used to design and prepare an alternative to be applied by the Government.
«Reformismo21 is not independent of the Popular Party, to which it is attached by an agreement, but it is autonomous. To preserve this autonomy, organic officials of the Popular Party are not part of its leadership, nor is Reformismo21 a spokesperson for its opinions. “He shares with him an ideology and an objective of serving our country, but he has his own visions of the problems,” says the foundation on its website, where it enshrines its values: “Freedom, humanism, Human Rights, family, solidarity, Spain, knowledge and plurality.”
The foundation’s advisory board, led by Feijóo, includes names such as the former Minister of Labor, Fátima Báñez, or the former Minister of Economy, Román Escolano. Also people without any party card, case of the economist José María Abad or the sports coach Toni Nadal.
From Genoa, it is Alma Ezcurranumber three of the party and the current person in charge of the electoral program, the link with the foundation. In his day, he worked hand in hand with Pablo Vazquez for programmatic plans such as immigration. In the middle of the countdown to the general elections, he does the same with his successor, Elorriaga, who returns to the center of the arena of ideas at the most crucial moment.