Without Feijóo but with Feijóo. That confident spirit in the face of the regional elections was what permeated the Galician PP before the setback of 23-J: the now national leader of the party would not be its headliner for the first time, but his pull as president of the Government of Spain would work as a propulsion engine to preserve the Xunta. The plan has been ruined. After his departure to Madrid, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who in his homeland achieved four absolute majorities, has had to settle for the position of head of the opposition against Pedro Sánchez. Of course, his failure in the face of the newly inaugurated socialist president has been accompanied by a great outcry against the amnesty law for Catalan independentists. Does that turmoil include an imminent electoral battle in Galicia? Sources close to Alfonso Rueda, his successor at the head of the Xunta and the Galician PP, deny this. The date of the elections, which must be held in July at the latest, will be decided by Rueda measuring the times in Galician code. The opposition of BNG and PSdeG-PSOE are preparing for him to do so once he has approved the 2024 budgets, which will go to full session in Parliament a few days before Christmas Eve.
The protests that have broken out with the announcement of the amnesty have not been heated in Galicia, the only territory in Spain where the ultra discourse has not granted Vox a single seat in the Galician Parliament and Congress (it only has one councilor in Avión, a town in Ourense of 1,800 inhabitants). The rallies called by the PP in the provincial capitals did attract monitoring, but the mobilizations in front of the socialist headquarters did not. In fact, these days a video of a man angry for being the only person who approached the PSOE premises in A Coruña to shout his indignation has gone viral.
That Feijóo did not manage to sleep in La Moncloa after 23-J was not the fault of the Galician PP, which rose three seats. It is proof that his photo on the electoral poster is unbeatable in Galicia. That is why Rueda’s debut as a candidate is uncertain and the battle with the left is expected to be very close. One of the last times that the Galician president was asked about a possible advance of the regional elections, he launched a call to “isolate” the community from “instability” and “madness.” It was the same day that the pact between PSOE and Junts was known. He assured that what was happening in Madrid reaffirmed his willingness to approve the regional budgets and “continue governing normally.” Last Friday, at an informative breakfast in the capital of Spain, he insisted on his willingness to protect the electoral call from the “storm” and opened the door to it not coinciding with the Basque elections as has happened since 2009.
The feeling among the parties is that Rueda will not exhaust the legislature. Both the BNG and the PSdeG admit that they are ready to face an electoral battle in February or March, and they are counting on the president of the Xunta to dissolve the Galician Parliament after the approval of the regional budgets in the plenary session that will be held on the 19th. and December 20.
The Bloc, which heads the opposition, sees the event as a historic opportunity for the Xunta to be chaired for the first time by a nationalist. Candidate Ana Pontón’s team assumes that the popular party will take advantage of “the confrontation and polarization of state politics” in the pre-campaign and campaign to avoid talking about the “devastating results” of her management. Xavier Campos, Communication coordinator of the nationalists, sees in the Galician PP a “contagion” of the “extremism” in which the party has established itself, although he is convinced that Galician society is “different and does not buy those speeches of hate produced from Madrid.”
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The socialists, after a long time of uncertainty, now have a candidate. José Ramón Gómez Besteiro returns, who was going to face Feijóo in 2016 but ended up resigning due to corruption charges from which he has been cleared. He has now been anointed by Sánchez to negotiate the investiture agreements, a promotion that reveals Ferraz’s hopes that he will be the man to resurrect a Galician PSOE that has not raised its head in the regional elections for 15 years. That the socialists regain electoral vigor is key for the left to aspire to dislodge the PP from the Xunta. Besteiro sees “an exhibition of nerves and political insolvency” in the Galician PP after Sánchez’s inauguration. Regarding the electoral date, the general secretary, Valentín González Formoso, is blunt: “We don’t care. “We have the best possible candidate.”
Who does not yet have a headline for the Galicians is Sumar. The heir party of En Marea, which was left out of the Galician Parliament in 2020 after becoming the second force, somewhat revived that political space on 23-J with two seats.
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