One of the novelties that the Wheel style has brought to the Galician PP is the obligatory Christmas video in which, in that apparently friendly tone typical of the time, it takes the opportunity to slip political messages. The first one after the electoral victory is more peaceful than last year, in the middle of the pre-campaign and in which not even a “I like fruit” was missing. This time, the popular ones have chosen to represent their Galicia as a choir that sings in tune under the direction of the president of the Xunta: two and a half minutes full of winks, allusions and double meanings, perhaps not all of them voluntary. Or yes.
The video starts with Rueda in the dressing room receiving the video call from Mariano Rajoy. While pointing to the bottle of water he is carrying in his hand, the former president of the Government – the only one who uses Spanish in the video – tells him that he does not know if he will be able to get there because “there is a plug at the entrance.” Not even seven seconds have passed and the first reference has arrived: Rajoy’s problems with the new European regulation on caps, the best sketch this year at the La Toja Forum, when Rajoy confessed: “I became like a circus.”
After this brief conversation, and after reminding him that he could follow everything “by streaming”, the president of the Xunta crosses the basements of the auditorium. On his walk, he comes across people rehearsing, humming the PP anthem —“lalá, lalá, lalalalá”— until he reaches another dressing room. “Man!” greets Raúl Santamaría, the Mozo de Arousa deputy in the Galician Parliament. “I wanted to ring the bells!” the former contestant complains about Chain reactionafter Telecinco’s unofficial commitment that finally came to nothing. “Don’t worry, this year you’re sure to ring the bell,” Rueda answers as he gives him… a golden bell, which the Waiter keeps ringing with a satisfied face.
If in last year’s video, the one with the bus, it was Puigdemont who was left on the ground, this time the one who is not allowed to enter the auditorium is a copy of Koldo, the former PSOE advisor, who has given name to an entire alleged corruption plot. “A certain Mr. García, who asks if he can also sing,” they tell Rueda at one of the doors. “Ah, well, where you have to sing is somewhere else,” he answers, blocking her way while pointing her finger at him.
After this meeting, the leader of the Galician PP enters the stage and it is there, in the backstagewhere she contacts other secondary actresses already common in these videos: her daughters. “In ten minutes connected, we’re going to rock it this year, right?” After them, it is the turn of the provincial presidents and the general secretary, others permanent since 2022, when Rueda was still ironic that no one yet knew Feijóo’s successor.
They are Luis López, Diego Calvo, Paula Prado, Elena Candia and Luis Menor, Baltar’s substitute in Ourense, who was given the obligatory Christmas sweater last year. Among the instructions they give —“Be careful with the stairs”; “At the back to the right”, “Welcome…” – Menor’s phrase is striking: “Come on, let’s all get situated, okay?” Beyond possible echoes to Tender Galvanthat sentence, in the mouth of the president of a provincial entity that functioned for decades as a paradigm of plugism, takes on a new meaning.
A woman, at the head of a hurrying group, asks: “This is where you enter?” The one who answers him is the Minister of the Sea, Alfonso Villares, using a phrase that marked the pellet crisis: “Yes, but don’t worry, everyone enters where they enter and leaves where they leave.” The original intended to answer a question about what happened to the plastic balls ingested by fish. Then there were those who compared her to the famous plasticine threads. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Rajoy will also return.
With the choir settling in, Toñito, who was a hooligan of Feijóo and is now a hooligan of his heir, raised his one-man banner shouting “Rueda non para!” An outburst that was silenced by the president of Parliament, Miguel Santalices, with his classic onomatopoeia: “Che-che-che!”, which caused general laughter.
“Excuse me, good afternoon.” An associate of Cristian Ventura, the viral TikTok waiter, brings the sheet music to the president on a platter and the performance can begin. They start with Togetherthe theme by Juan Pardo, classic anthem of the Galician PPdespite its recent version Sovietized by the Caamagno Family. Rueda interrupts: “This is very good, but how about something more Christmassy?” It is then when the choir—in which the faces of politicians alternate with anonymous faces—performs Silent night. Everyone has a folder with the score and text in their hands. Galicia sounds good.
“How saved I had it! “This one is going to take Mariah Carey’s job,” exclaim, tablet in hand, the president’s daughters. They are not the only spectators who follow streaming how Rueda directs his choir. “This concert does sound good,” says Alberto Núñez Feijóo without taking his eyes off his cell phone. And, as if he were enjoying a Real Madrid match, Rajoy, in front of his computer, concludes: “How he tunes!” He does it so convinced that it seems that he is going to blurt out “and not like the Prosecutor’s Office”, although that, more than to Álvaro García Ortiz, would have been a slap in the face to Jorge Fernández Díaz.
After the Christmas carol, the speech arrives. “We want Christmas to sound good for everyone,” Rueda says to the camera, with his entire choir behind. “Because when we Galicians get together we sound very good and our future has to sound even better.” Without forgetting “a very special and very affectionate greeting to those affected by the Valencia catastrophe”, the leader of the Galician PP says goodbye in the foreground: “Bo Nadal for everyone.”
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