Italian politician and journalist Giulio Andreotti coined one of the most famous phrases about how ruthless politics can sometimes be: “There are close friends, friends, acquaintances, adversaries, enemies, deadly enemies and… party mates.” Pablo Casado verified the rigor of that phrase on Tuesday. The leader of the PP was abandoned by practically all his followers, even the most faithful, including those who owed him his political career, who jumped ship as in the sinking of the titanica, in an incessant drip throughout a fateful morning for the still president of the Conservatives. Betrayed by his own, cornered by a clamor for him to leave, practically alone, Pablo Casado resists clinging to his position at the party headquarters on Calle de Génova, 13, in Madrid. It is not known for how many hours. The leader of the PP entrenches himself with a very small nucleus of faithful, among whom the secretary general, Teodoro García Egea, his right-hand man, is no longer there either, whom he dropped on Tuesday in order to buy some time, although it is already of its last bars.
Casado gave the head of his right hand as a piece to pay the barons, who demanded it as a condition not to be humiliated with direct and public requests for resignation. He resisted as much as he could, but there was no more unanimous claim in the PP. The name of the secretary general was on the lips of the main regional presidents as a matter of priority. The important thing for the group led by the Galician Alberto Núñez Feijóo to let Casado resist as head of the party until the congress – something that remains to be seen – was that García Egea take his hands off the organization. “Without control of anything by Teodoro”, Casado was required, according to group sources.
The number two he was the most hated and feared figure in the PP. His enemies abounded throughout the formation, as evidenced by some of the public statements on Tuesday calling for his departure. “It is the end of an undesirable way of doing politics in the hands of a person who should never have been secretary general of the PP,” said Mario Garcés, deputy spokesman for the parliamentary group and one of its staunchest opponents. Garcés paraphrased the title of the book by the parliamentary export spokeswoman Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, politically undesirable, to whom his confrontation with the former secretary general has given him a complete work. García Egea resigned in injury time, before Casado faces a decisive meeting this Wednesday with the regional presidents of the PP, from which many doubt that he will emerge as the leader of the PP.
All the territorial power has turned its back on Casado: at least 15 of the 17 regional leaders, including the five presidents who govern, had warned that he was going to appear at that meeting to demand an extraordinary congress to put an end to his leadership. Casado also ended up giving in on that point, and confirmed in the afternoon that the conclave will be extraordinary; that is, as soon as possible. That wasn’t an easy transfer either, because his intention was an ordinary congress that would be brought forward at best (it was scheduled for July). For him to do so, it was necessary for the president of the guarantees committee, Andrea Levy, to resign, and for it to be publicly requested by its three parliamentary spokespersons (in Congress, the Senate and the European Parliament), Cuca Gamarra, Javier Maroto and Dolors Montserrat, as well as the majority of the leadership of the parliamentary group, which signed an unprecedented joint statement.
Casado has succumbed devoured by his brutal internal war with Isabel Díaz Ayuso. No one doubts in the PP that his final is very close, but he tries to hold on, as the conversations he had with those closest to him throughout Tuesday attest. At three in the afternoon, in the midst of very strong pressure to resign and when he had already lost all support, Casado was still arguing with one of his related leaders, to whom he expressed: “I don’t know why I have what to go I did nothing”. The unknown is how long he will withstand the pressure, because the most faithful are also asking him, from affection, that he leave now.
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The end is near. A relevant popular baron aware of the negotiations with Casado assures that the consensus is to “set a date for the congress” and “close the dignified exit” of the popular leader, if it is possible after the public ridicule to which he is being subjected. The exit will be “whatever he deems appropriate,” says this source. The barons are considering setting up a manager or an organizing committee for the next congress. The details have to be discussed this Wednesday at the meeting scheduled for eight in the afternoon.
The abandonment of some of those most loyal to Casado reveals how cruel politics can be. Among the casualties on Tuesday are those of the leaders of his small team for the adventure of the 2018 primaries, such as Belén Hoyo, the first to demand the resignation of García Egea in the management committee on Monday, or Javier Maroto, his spokesman in the Senate, smiling in the group photo the day that Casado presented his guarantees to run as leader of the PP. Also Pablo Hispán, his former chief of staff, and José Luis Martínez Almeida, a politician who owes his entire career to Casado, who promoted him as a candidate for mayor of Madrid when he was an unknown and who on Tuesday resigned as spokesman for the Executive.
Some of those closest to him who have abandoned him explain their divorce because of García Egea’s influence on him. “Pablo has been abducted, kidnapped by Teodoro. He threw himself into his hands; it is a subject of divan, of manipulation of the personality. Teodoro was effective, he gave him security, he used the evil arts of politics to control everything, and he has led Pablo to nonsense and nonsense, ”says one of his intimates.
The war with Ayuso is the main example of García Egea’s influence on Casado. The leader and his number two they took the matter to the margins of almost everyone. The 13 leaders of the core of the management committee were oblivious to the fact that Casado was going to publicly accuse the president of Madrid of corrupt practices. The body met secretly on Thursday to assess the crisis and several made Casado ugly that the management accused Ayuso “without sufficient evidence.” The president of the PP did not pay attention to his nucleus and on Friday morning he defended in the prime time radio that his internal enemy bordered on criminal practices. No one in the party believed him. On Monday, with the crisis overflowing, the same committee broke out in criticism of Casado and García Egea. “But how is it possible that so many mistakes have been made!” some of its members cry out. Everyone believes that the secretary general has taken the leader to the end of him. And in their circle they already look to the future without Casado. One of his faithful in the committee laments the end of the leader while turning the page: “He says that he defended the honorability of the party, and that he has done so in good faith. Everything is very unfair, but they have induced him to a wrong strategy. Now, everyone behind Feijóo”.
García Egea: “I will always be loyal to Pablo Casado”
Teodoro García Egea presented his resignation as general secretary of the Popular Party on Tuesday. A charge, he said last night in an interview granted to the program The objective, of La Sexta, which means “being the bad guy in the movie”. When asked if the president of his party, Pablo Casado, had asked him to take that step and he showed resistance, García Egea stated that it was “a personal decision.” And he assured: “I will always be loyal to Pablo Casado.” Regarding the battle for power in the PP, intensified since the contracts of the Community of Madrid emerged in which the brother of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was involved, the already former secretary general of the main opposition party stated: “We have been falsely accused of espionage. We have denied it. What you have to ask yourself is if Spain wants political parties that ask inside, or that when they receive information on internal affairs they throw it in the wastebasket”. García Egea explained that the information that triggered the conflict reached him “in August, September of last year, from an anonymous source.”
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