Carlos Mazón is already president of the Valencian Community. A month and a half after regional elections that turned the Valencian political board upside down and clearly elevated the PP as the party with the most votes, the one that was the candidate of the popular has been invested as head of the Consell thanks to the favorable vote of PP and Vox .
The 53 deputies of the two parties have allowed the right to recover the Palau after two legislatures in the opposition where power has been in the hands of the Botanical. The main parties that signed this pact in their day, PSPV and Compromís, have voted against the candidate with their 46 parliamentarians, but after the disappearance of Unidas Podemos de Les Corts they have been unable to stop an investiture that was closed.
Because, unlike other regions such as Murcia, in the Valencian Community the PP-Vox pact had been well tied for weeks and the votes were more than guaranteed. In fact, it is clear until the vice president of Vox will be the bullfighter Vicente Barrera. Because Mazón is aware that, unlike the previous Executives of the PP, he does not have a majority in Les Corts and that he will have to reach agreements on countless occasions. He will do it as a priority with his partners who represent the populist right but he does not want to close the door on PSPV and Compromís since there are matters where he is closer to them than to Vox.
In this sense, the already president of the Generalitat has made a speech with gestures both to his left and to his right, aware that his best letter of introduction in this eleventh legislature is a position of outstretched hand to all. And the first is the very structure of its Executive.
Mazón has advanced that it will not only have a Department of Equality, but it will give it the rank of vice-presidency, thus making this department equal to one of those occupied by Vox, which will have both a cultural vice-presidency and the Departments of Agriculture and Justice. A way of marking distances with some partners with whom he maintains differences in the fight against sexist violence. In fact, this same week he showed up at a rally to reject the crime in Antella, where a local policeman murdered his wife and his son and then committed suicide. Vox did not want to get behind the banner for the slogan “macho violence” since they only refer to “all violence” or “domestic violence.”
With movements like this, Mazón advances that his pact with Vox does not mean assuming the postulates set by the formation of Santiago Abascal and that he will try to strike a balance and look for issues that unite the four formations with a presence in Les Corts. And he has done so at the start of his investiture speech, where he has proposed to observe a minute of silence on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco at the hands of ETA. After it, there was a powerful applause from all the parliamentarians. One of the few of the day.
Once this small tribute was concluded, Mazón launched a somewhat predictable speech with little impact beyond the announcement of the vice presidency. In it, the main lines of action as president have been exposed, all of which are already known. But appealing to the feeling of pact, he wanted to start by showing that he will always have “his hand outstretched”, as he has tried to do in these first weeks in which he tried to seek the support of the socialists for his investiture and came to an agreement with Compromís a seat at the Mesa de Les Corts, in addition to closing an investiture with Vox.
After this true declaration of intent, he has gone on to describe his program. And as the first axis, it has focused on health that will be at the center of its management. To promote measures with a broad consensus such as the reinforcement of primary care, the reduction of waiting lists, the dignity of professionals or a greater commitment to mental health. But also with others that differentiate him from the left, such as the suppression of “the covert linguistic requirement.”
The plenary session began with a minute of silence in memory of Miguel Ángel Blanco
Along the same lines, he has ruled on education. The PP candidate wants to complete the project of implementing free nurseries from zero to three years, but also create a system that guarantees good training “to compete in a global world.” Among his objectives, promises stand out such as ending regulations that have left the concerted one aside and guaranteeing “true freedom of choice” both in the center and in the language that he considers has not been real during the last eight years of the Botanical.
The third major issue, how could it be otherwise, has been taxes. Mazón has confirmed that he will approve a tax reform “to lower personal income tax for all Valencians”, especially for the middle classes, “guaranteeing progressivity”. But this will not be the only tax change, as I know that a tourist tax that was to begin to be applied in 2024 will be repealed and the inheritance and gift tax will be abolished.
The promotion of public housing or the deployment of renewable energies whose projects have been stuck for years will be other major initiatives, as Mazón has stressed. But in this legislature there will be room for identity, with the promise that a new law on identity signs will be approved and that “the government of change will eliminate all support for those who want to impose the Catalan countries on us.” This has been remarked by the already president of the Generalitat in one of his most applauded interventions both by his deputies and by Vox.
But the true moment in which Mazón has excelled has not been in his initial speech but when the debate itself began. It is true that he has tried to maintain a conciliatory tone, especially in his replies to Ana Vega, trustee of Vox. For the green leader he only had good words, but he was different both from Ximo Puig and, especially, from Joan Baldoví.
The outgoing president of the Generalitat, who will cease to be so officially once the formal act is held this Monday and the investiture of Mazón is published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), has been reproached for having been reproached ” that the ghost of Catalanism stir up” and that “shameful” transfers be made to Vox in municipalities such as Náquera, where the LGTBI flag has been banned from public balconies. In the same way, he has not shared that he has referred to his “warmth” regarding gender violence. In response, Mazón reminded him of the only yes is yes law that has reduced the sentence for rapists. But at no time has either of the two candidates wanted to go to a continuous and evident clash, keeping the door open to agreements despite specific reproaches from both.
With Baldoví he has confronted directly and Mazón has come to admit that he likes to debate with the nationalist leader. He himself has reminded him that he has not made great progress in Congress and that he has been “the pagafantas” of Pedro Sánchez. In the same way, he has exposed a painful reality for Compromís, the fact that they are the only party with representation in Les Corts that has lost voters since both the PP and PSPV and Vox have increased their support and their representatives. In this sense, he has asked those of Baldoví to reflect.
Next steps
Once the investiture of Mazón has concluded, the president of Les Corts, Llanos Massó, has confirmed that the next step will be to notify the head of state, King Felipe, and the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, of the result of the vote. The next step will be the inauguration, which will take place on Monday in Les Corts. As of that day, Mazón will already serve as president and will be able to begin to name the people who will make up the new Council, of which very few names have yet been revealed.
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