The predictable: once the noise of the electoral contest in Castilla y León had passed, the Popular Party and Vox returned to the dialogue table. To close the pending agreements in Extremadura and Aragón, blocked by the political strategy of Santiago Abascalwhich overthrew the investiture of Maria Guardiola and refused to approach Jorge Azcon in the constitution of the Cortes to prioritize distance with its potential partner in the campaign.
From December to March, the Vox leader has refused to give Guardiola a thumbs up. Because he understood that a pact would penalize him before his parish. Week after week, he put forward different arguments.
And now, as he shows signs of understanding, his party’s critics draw their sabers: “Didn’t you say that until Feijóo presents a motion of censure, Vox was not going to be a participant in an agreement?”says a territorial leader ironically.
In essence, Abascal’s words, spoken at a rally in Béjar (Salamanca) on March 9, were the following: «We extend our hand to him, but we demand that he break those pacts (with the PSOE in Brussels). “We demand that you present a motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez to portray Sánchez.”
The truth is that, today, there is no evidence that Feijóo has given an order to “break” any alliance with the socialists in Europe, nor has he certainly registered a motion of censure in the Lower House.
There are not a few, but they are silent in the face of the public, the charges that reproach the Vox leadership for the tacticism of recent months. They all agree that, in the end, Abascal has managed to “make the PP a victim.”
No one is aware that, in a negotiation that runs aground, the assumption of guilt is the key story. And the voter, as a general rule, usually punishes the one who blocks. Not to the blocked one.
Among the different readings made of last Sunday’s results, apart from the mismanagement of expectations, there are more and more voices within Vox that point to the lack of understanding with the PP. At a time when the PP, precisely, decided to lay down the rug for Vox to make visible that if there was no agreement it was not on their part.
Feijóo spurs Abascal on
In the popular ranks they are sure that Abascal has taken note of the lesson and, this time, will not put any brakes on the wheels. “We should not enter April without an agreement,” he told her yesterday morning Alberto Núñez Feijóo to Federico Jimenez Losantosin the EsRadio microphones.
Aware that the political reality when there is no absolute majority forces us to seek alliances, the popular leader assured that there are no “buts” when it comes to signing his party’s signature on a joint document with Vox. Because “Fundamentally,” he concluded, “they coincide.” First point, and most important: “End sanchismo.”
With governance still unresolved in both Extremadura and Aragon, he reproached: “We are late.” And he revealed that the Extremaduran agreement was close to being finalized before the Castilian-Leonese elections. «We have a pending agenda. There are many documents prepared. In Extremadura we have a closed programmatic agreement. What we need is to concretize it and extend it with regard to the national aspects to Aragon and Castilla y León.
Once Abascal confirmed on Monday his desire to return to the regional governments, the distribution of “chairs” in Guardiola’s Executive remains to be stipulated. The forecast that the popular commanders manage is that the final signature will arrive in a matter of days.