The Spanish political news these days seems like a movie with suspense, detectives, frauds, accusations and retractions. everything inside the Popular Party (PP), the largest opposition force, which is worn out by the scuffle between its main figures: Pablo Casado, president of the party; and Isabel Diaz Ayusopresident of the Community of Madrid.
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The confrontation endangers his aspirations to govern Spain in 2023 and is due to the discovery of some invoices that were paid by the Community of Madrid to a company where Tomás Díaz Ayuso, Isabel’s brother, works.
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The payment was made in 2020 after the Community, during the first wave of the pandemic, signed a contract for 1.5 million euros with Priviet Sportive SL for the purchase of 250,000 Chinese masks. This company belongs to a friend of the Díaz Ayuso brothers and it is suspected that, from the operation, the president’s brother obtained 286,000 euros, according to Casado.
Faced with the serious accusation, the crisis in the main Spanish right-wing opposition party erupted when Díaz Ayuso publicly accused the national leadership of Pablo Casado of having resorted to dirty maneuvers to destroy it.
The president alluded to the information that appeared in the media The confidential and The world affirming that the PP resorted to a private investigator to find out if his brother Tomás charged the millionaire commission for the masks.
“The invoice to Priviet Sportive is not a commission for obtaining the contract from the administration, but the collection of the steps taken to obtain the material in China and its transfer to Madrid, which is different”, explained the president of the Community when insisting in which the earnings were 55,800 euros. “It’s a consideration for their work, not a brokerage commission,” she said.
For Casado, however, one can “think that there was influence peddling.” The declaration of the conservative leader unleashed the crisis within the PP. And it is that Casado sees in Ayuso a strong rival, despite the fact that it was he who took her to the place he occupies today. But, the truth is the president of the Community of Madrid, thanks to her self-confidence and the measures against the current during the pandemic, she has managed to win over followers.
“Isabel Díaz Ayuso is a very authentic person,” Eduardo González, a political consultant, told the newspaper La Razón. The same authenticity that she has shown in the scuffle with Casado.
Since last October, the leader of the PP had news of the existence of the invoices and communicated it to Díaz Ayuso, but she did not give it any importance. Now, when they come to light, the matter turns into an internal crisis, and the enmity between the two hardens strongly.
Both the ruling party -PSOE- and United We Can and More Madrid filed complaints with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the facts. These organizations consider that there could have been prevarication and influence peddling.
In the face of the crisis, only some electoral barons support Casado. The leadership was assumed by the president of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. He believes that the protagonists of the discrepancy “have to find a solution to a problem that has been created in these two circles.” The other parties rub their hands as they watch the show.
The PSOE expressed that it is an internal problem, but deep down the situation favors it. He hopes that the crisis will take points away from his rival, who currently ranks first in the polls.
Vox, a far-right party, is playing for many radical PP voters to redirect themselves towards their group.
Ciudadanos, a centrist party, also hopes to subtract votes from Casado’s party and find a path to recovery after its latest electoral defeats.
For their part, the organizations of the extreme left, such as United We Can, interpret the case as the burial of the right.
Leadership crisis in the right-wing opposition in Spain
The schism put thousands of Díaz Ayuso supporters who demonstrated against Casado on the streets of Madrid over the weekend.
Meanwhile and to settle the crisis, Casado announced that he considered Díaz Ayuso’s explanations valid and canceled the open file against her.
This demonstrates the fragility of his leadership, questioned by the regional barons, and the possibility that neither he nor Díaz Ayuso will win this war. The party begins to look towards a third party. It could be Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the serene Galician leader. However, this politician knows that a way out to the national arena would not be easy: the well-known photo with a drug trafficker from the region of his, a friend of his, would not fit the national electorate.
For now, Casado is looking for an agreement with Díaz Ayuso, still unlikely as long as he does not clarify whether he, or someone close to him, put detectives in the Díaz Ayuso family, since she maintains that there was espionage.
In any case, the final word will be held by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. The investigative body will say if the president of the Community is responsible for having committed a crime. Spain awaits, while tempers continue to rage.
JUANITA SAMPER OSPINA
Correspondent of THE TIME
MADRID
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