The evicted leader makes a song to his legacy before “forever” so as not to remain as a footnote in the history of the PP
There are many possible bad drinks in politics. And then there is having to address a few words at your own funeral, before an audience that, with very few exceptions, has not only abandoned you, but has also uncovered your strategic and organizational shortcomings and doubts about your real ability to reach Moncloa. That is the hemlock that a Pablo Casado has drunk in Seville who has said goodbye to his family in a dark suit, a smile as excited as the circumstances and a speech feared for what he could condole, but which has resulted in a reconciliation ceremony with the delegates applauding him standing up after announcing that he is taking “a step to the side” to leave everything: his seat in Congress and any organic responsibility. «It is a pride to be your colleague and an honor to have been your president. Until always”, he has closed his cycle of less than four years, after declaring himself a “friend” of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. In the auditorium, Teodoro García Egea, his right-hand man, did not listen to him. The focus of all the anger in the internal bankruptcy that has claimed the head of both.
Until he has consummated his departure, to a destination still to be cleared up and placing himself at the disposal of his successor for “whatever he needs” but away from Genoa 13, everything lived in the Sevillian afternoon has lent itself to lacerating, cruel metaphors, for the leader pushed to resign. Coldness in the interventions in the plenary, barely saved by the mentions of Juan Vivas from Ceuta and the epitaph-like praise of former presidents Aznar – «wherever you are» – and Rajoy.
Distance at the reception upon arrival, when the new number two and three of the party, Cuca Gamarra and Elías Bendodo, came looking for him. Misgivings waiting to know the content of his swan song in those who have surrounded him on the way to the podium, supported by Feijóo and with two kisses to Isabel Díaz Ayuso that the filmmaker of the images of the conclave has stolen from the journalists who waited expectantly for the inevitable reunion of intimate enemies. The imposing room that hosts the congress, a display of the power that the popular ones retain, has only tempered as its until today president has been reeling off the final message. And the praise of the party and those present, the grateful gesture of Casado, has softened the agitation of the banner that he has wanted to leave fixed with his political legacy. To the point that, at times, he has seemed more like the speech of a presidential candidate than one purged.
If they say that you don’t know your partner until you get divorced, Casado was able to prove it in his party version in the barely 72 hours that intervened between his attempt to stay in the most noble office of the PP and the barons, some of whom They owe the position and with Feijóo at the helm, they will point out the exit door of what has been his political home and from which he still aspired to Moncloa. Who will cease to be the leader of the first opposition party in hours has dispatched what, without a doubt, will still bleed for him with the fact that this has been a “bittersweet” time that he overcame because of his “enormous gratitude” towards his co-religionists. He has thanked them for the warmth received when he was about to lose his newborn son. From then on, Casado has given up his stripes, but not to make a final gloss on his legacy. To “high-intensity reformism.”
The outgoing president has noted in his income statement having brought the PP “to the gates” of Moncloa after surviving the takeover bid for Citizens and “those who came later and we have made things clear to them”, in a veiled allusion to Vox which is common in this conclave; the extreme right, if it exists, is not mentioned. Of having fought against corruption, against the backdrop of his espionage duel and dubious contracts with Díaz Ayuso. And of having provided the party with an “ambitious program” to return to power that he has detailed as if he were still in a position to carry it out. Casado has defined the PP as the acronym that embodies “the third Spain”, the one that does not want to evoke civil war and the one that “gets up early”, other implicit setbacks directed at Abascal and his people. And the goodbye could not miss the allusion to his militancy linked to the kidnapping and murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco, in a tribute to those who fell by the bullets and bombs of ETA in the face of the «unbearable transfers» of the Government of Sánchez to « the heirs» of the terrorists.
In an address packed with quotes from Cervantes, Cánovas, Max Weber or Adolfo Suárez, with sweat beading on his forehead and tears, if any, to safety, Casado has asked his family to maintain their “principles” before those who, as he has emphasized, they want the PP to desist from them so that it does not win the elections. «We have left our skin for Spain», he has finished, before slipping the only message to his successor: that he does not erase his entire team in the new direction of the popular ones. Feijóo has saved Navarrese Ana Beltrán, almost the only one to remain loyal to the president who has fought his last battle not to be a mere footnote in the history of the PP.
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