The governability of Castilla y León is still stuck. The insufficient victory in the early regional elections on February 14, with 31 of the 81 prosecutors in the Cortes, places Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP) before the dilemma of becoming the first leader of his party to govern in coalition with Vox or rely on the PSOE to neutralize the extreme right. The alternative, a minority PP government backed by small parties, would require PSOE or Vox to abstain from the investiture vote, something almost impossible. A national political crisis, that of the leadership of his own party, and an international conflict, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, return Mañueco to the background, where, say those who know him, he moves better for far-reaching decisions, such as allying with Vox . In the background, an electoral repetition that the PP fears and to which the acting president today closes.
“I will be at the head of a government that is not xenophobic, racist or sexist,” said Mañueco on Monday, who began the first round of contacts for the investiture last week, talks that ended on Monday. Mañueco’s purpose of governing alone is as firm as it is complicated in view of the results of 14-F. The president asks for abstentions that bring four more years to add to the 35 that the PP has been in power. But this approach does not advance because the Socialists, with 28 attorneys, offer themselves only if the PP breaks any relationship with Vox anywhere in Spain, which would mean giving up its external support in Andalusia or Madrid. For its part, the extreme right-wing party, the great winner of the elections, with 13 prosecutors, demands to enter for the first time in an autonomous government, that of the Junta de Castilla y León.
The alternative goes through an agreement of the PP with the different minority forces of the Cortes. However, this would not reach the absolute majority required for Mañueco’s investiture in the first round and would require either socialist or Vox abstentions to achieve it in the second. The Union of the Leonese People (UPL), with three attorneys, prefers a solo Executive of the PP and “agree agreements” during the legislature to the formation of a stable PP-Vox coalition. Soria ¡Ya!, the other great winner of the 14-F and flag of the Empty Spain platform, offers its three seats to “support governability”, with a “working group” agreed with the PP in which they examine coincident points of both formations. Ciudadanos, which went from 12 seats to only that of the former vice president, Francisco Igea, proposes a “broad-based government” and “Merkel-style” alliances – of conservatives, liberals and social democrats – against the extreme right. United We Can have a single prosecutor and reiterates that Mañueco and Vox will ally. For Ávila, with another parliamentarian, he has not even met with the PP because Mañueco was not going to attend the meeting with this split from his party.
The search for leadership for the national PP has led to a meeting on Monday afternoon between the acting president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, the members of the national board of directors of the community and Javier Maroto, spokesman for the party in the Senate. Mañueco was one of the last leaders of the PP to announce that he was withdrawing his support for the still popular president, Pablo Casado, and has positioned himself in favor of a “unity” candidacy that recovers stability in the formation. About Alberto Núñez Feijóo, he has extolled him as a “moral authority” and “moderate”, without positioning himself in favor of the Galician president presenting himself to head the party but praising his political journey.
The scenario of failed negotiations in Castilla y León would lead to an electoral repetition that the PP avoids and that could damage the formation given its current internal crisis. The party will hold an extraordinary congress at the beginning of April to elect a new national president to replace Casado, who has shown little inclination towards a pact with the extreme right. Vox squeezes but does not suffocate: he knows that he has the key and that the PP does not want ballot boxes, but he will not force himself to manage positions after three years of electoral growth without occupying offices.
The courtship of Juan García-Gallardo, leader of Vox in Castilla y León, displeases part of the regional PP. Party sources reluctant to the pact assume that it will be consummated “when the paripé ends.” Mañueco refuses to brand Vox as “extreme right”; he considers them loyal to the Statute of Autonomy, despite the fact that they propose ending the autonomous communities, and avoids commenting on García-Gallardo’s homophobic statements. The “failed staging” of conversations with the PSOE – Mañueco barely lasted 15 minutes sitting with the socialist Luis Tudanca and got up from the table when he mentioned corruption – shows the will of the acting president to agree with Vox, say popular sources contrary to this agreement.
The brevity of the conversation with the PSOE contrasted with the hour and a half of dialogue between PP and Vox. Those of Santiago Abascal assured that the PP had seen their programmatic guidelines as “reasonable”, but Mañueco replied that this had been a minimal part of the conversation and claimed the Law of Equality or Historical Memory that Vox wants to repeal. García-Gallardo classified as “left-wing policies” those of 35 years of popular mandates, some agreed by right-wing leaders such as former Prime Minister José María Aznar during his time in Castilla y León (1987-1989) or Juan Vicente Herrera ( 2001-2019). This signed the autonomous norm against gender violence in 2010 or the historical memory in 2019, which speeds up exhumations in a territory with 526 identified mass graves.
After these days of unsuccessful speeches and discreet approaches, on March 10 Mañueco faces his first milestone: the composition of the Table of the Courts, which will show if there is a PP-Vox entente. Then, until March 31, a period opens to proclaim a candidate and, from the time one is nominated, a maximum of two months to vote for him in plenary session. From there could come the first regional Executive of Spain that includes the extreme right.
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