Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Alejandro Fernández sealed peace on Wednesday during a meal with other leaders of the PP of Catalonia in which they left internal tensions behind. At least, for now. The national leader of the PP traveled to Barcelona in the middle of Holy Week to publicly bless, as a candidate in the May 12 elections, the president of the party in Catalonia. A baptism that came after a “somewhat delicate birth,” as Fernández described it in a previous event with the regional board: an attempt to stage unity after two weeks of maximum tension.
The Deputy Secretary of Organization of the Popular Party, Carmen Fúnez, spoke for more than an hour with the head of the list before both parties put an end to the fight. But with the configuration of the lists, and once the wounds have been stitched, Feijóo has ensured that Fernández will be under supervision, placing people related to the national leadership of Génova Street in the candidacy, as confirmed by sources from the formation. “Alejandro is a good candidate, but he is not a party man,” they point out from the Catalan PP.
When Feijóo and Miguel Tellado landed hand in hand at the Genoa headquarters in the spring of 2022, they imposed their law. The leader of the PP and his then vice-secretary of Organization were resolving the pending regional congresses one by one, which gave rise to baronies of their liking. All except Catalonia, where Alejandro Fernández – leader of the party in the community and spokesperson in the Parliament in the toughest moments of the processes independence-refused to abdicate. And the tension was growing: the president of the popular Catalans openly spoke out against the contacts that the national leadership maintained with Junts after the July 23 elections to gauge his support for an investiture. And Feijóo is a boss who values loyalty extremely.
With the electoral calendar in hand, Fernández's replacement was postponed until later, with the idea of carrying it out in the prelude to the Catalan elections, which were scheduled for the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025. The plan was about planned until the president Pere Aragonès brought forward the appointment at the polls to May 12. Since then, Fernández's confirmation remained up in the air and the pools over other candidates have tightened the internal seams of the PP, both in Catalonia and in Madrid. In the Catalan Popular Party, because there was a previous history of enmities between members of the party. And, at the national headquarters, because while sources from the popular leadership privately recognized the cabals in which Feijóo was involved, leaders such as the deputy spokesperson in Congress, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, bet everything, and in public, on Fernández. “The best candidate,” the deputy wrote on the social network X on Monday.
Feijóo weighed several options for days: Daniel Sirera, spokesperson for Barcelona City Council; Dolors Montserrat, vice-president spokesperson of the Group of the European People's Party; or Manu Reyes, mayor of Castedellfels. “You cannot undress the Barcelona City Council, the European Parliament, the Castelldefels City Council… It was undressing one saint to dress another,” appreciates a member of the national executive about the final decision. “The PP of Catalonia is irrelevant,” he adds, suggesting that it was not worth bleeding in that battle. According to the latest barometer from the Center for Opinion Studies of the Generalitat (CEO), the Popular Party will rise from the current 3 seats to 13 and will become the fourth political force in Catalonia. The survey was done before there was a clear candidate.
With the wind in the face in a territory hostile to the popular party, the focus of recent days has been on how Feijóo has been getting tangled up to designate the candidate. “For better or worse, at least they have talked about us,” other sources from the Catalan PP console themselves. Finally, and to avoid an internal war that would have imploded just a few weeks before the election, the leader of the Popular Party gave his approval on Monday to a candidate who resisted tirelessly. He did so after holding a closed-door meeting with him at the party headquarters in Madrid.
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Control from Madrid
But Alejandro Fernández will be, in some way, controlled by Génova. MEP Dolors Montserrat, who was initially Feijóo's favorite, has been named campaign manager. “It has been done to show unity,” say popular Catalan sources close to the national leadership, who also recognize that the movement involves combining “different” sensitivities when offering a project for Catalonia. Montserrat also attended the meeting of the regional board of directors on Wednesday that put an end to the internal struggle. During her intervention, she insisted that the party “has always been united” and that they have never been a “personalist” formation.
Montserrat is currently holding one less speech hard than that of Fernández – a leader who is frontally opposed to any pact with nationalism – and more in line with the approaches of Feijóo, in whose cabinet they highlight that the former president of the Xunta de Galicia comes from living and governing a community of those considered “historical nationalities.” ”.
In addition to imposing Montserrat as tutor of the campaign, Génova has placed several of its leaders on the 12-M lists. Among them, Mayor Manu Reyes will occupy number two for Barcelona and the Secretary of Organization of the Catalan PP, Santiago Rodríguez, will occupy number four, as confirmed by party sources. Rodríguez is also a deputy in Congress since the last general elections.
Feijóo will face the Catalan regional elections after another complicated appointment at the polls for the popular ones, that of the Basque elections on April 21, and before the European elections on June 8. For the PP leader, the Catalan elections are key to consolidating his national message. And the hope is that the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, does not achieve a comfortable majority, to prevent the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, from emerging stronger.
“I come to ask my party to be active like never before,” Feijóo exclaimed on Wednesday before the members of the Catalan PP in Barcelona. “We are here to tell Catalonia that this is our task: to confront the independence movement and solve the problems,” added the leader of the Popular Party, who will return to Barcelona next Wednesday to present the lists with his candidate. The speeches of Feijóo and Fernández this week advanced where the popular campaign will go: on the one hand, direct attacks on Illa and the sanchismo as responsible for “resurrecting” the processes and to be willing to facilitate an independence referendum; on the other hand, to influence the social and economic problems that, in his opinion, the pro-independence governments of ERC and Junts have brought about. And concentrate the “constitutionalist” vote around the PP ballot, with a call to the voters of Ciudadanos, PSC and Vox.
In any case, and despite the internal and external noise about the fight between Feijóo and Fernández, the PP expects an increase in seats on May 12, with Ciudadanos practically erased from the map, according to the surveys. The mess of recent weeks surrounding the appointment of the candidate has already been left, according to several party sources, behind and in the background. “Today we are better than five days ago,” emphasizes another Catalan leader. The intention from now on is to show unity and all row together. The tensions passed “for a better life,” conclude sources around Fernández.
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