Juan García-Gallardo started off with humour and ended up being the victim of his joke. “I hope no one here takes my portfolio away from me,” joked the new vice-president of Vox shortly after shaking hands with the president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP), when asked about his vacant vice-presidency of powers, without a ministry or portfolio. On March 10, 2022, both inaugurated the pacts between the right and the extreme right, replicated a year later in four other communities and a hundred town councils. Mañueco’s smile froze and his partner tried to get out of the situation with a “you have to be careful with ironies here.” Both quickly changed the subject. That day they signed 11 axes and 32 agreements, clause 32 of which, on immigration, marked the divorce of the first PP-Vox marriage over the distribution of minors arriving in the Canary Islands.
PP sources say that those who have “taken the portfolio” from Vox have been them by dodging the ultra-right demands for two years. They have broken ties at a national level and the vice presidents have distanced themselves from their bosses, although with asterisks in cases such as Gallardo’s: he will remain in the Cortes as spokesperson for Vox. This means a higher salary, about 100,000 euros a year compared to the 90,000 he received, more freedom of speech without the institutional yoke and a certain vital calm: from an agenda full of official acts to the more relaxed pace of the regional Cortes.
The truncated legislature has been governed by grandiloquent messages and promises from Vox diluted by Mañueco’s phlegm. Neither anti-abortion protocol, nor the law on domestic violence, nor the law on Concord, the latter in process although the president has hinted that it could be paralyzed. Gallardo will go from sitting next to him to being located a little further to his right as spokesperson for Vox after saying goodbye without rancor. “Dear president, […] “I will always be grateful to you for the many occasions on which, with effort, we have managed to reach an agreement, despite our different initial points of view,” wrote Gallardo in his farewell letter, alluding to “external pressures” that caused the government to fail, but criticizing the PP for validating the distribution of migrant minors. “Rectifying is wise,” he advised before signing his resignation.
Parliamentary sources in Castilla y León point out that Gallardo had been upset with his ally for some time, as he reflected on the social network X the day before breaking up: “They betrayed us in the defense of the right to life. They have betrayed us by collaborating with illegal human trafficking mafias. Our generosity has been infinite, despite the breaches of the pact.”
Despite not having a position in the Junta, Gallardo appeared in one of those institutional rooms where he issued some of those controversial proclamations that earned him some reproach from Mañueco. There he announced his jump to the position of spokesperson for Vox. A lawyer by profession, he entered the Junta claiming that he was losing money by leaving his father’s office, which defended the Ruiz-Mateos family.
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
The deputy spokesman for the PP, Miguel Ángel García, asks for time for his new Vox counterpart: “We may find ourselves with a more aggressive Gallardo or perhaps calmer, like the Vox group, and hat”. García acknowledges that in his position “you don’t have the pressure of being in government, nor do they put the microphone in front of you to talk about something that happened five minutes ago” and he trusts in Vox’s “loyalty” on the issues that they agree on, although he warns: “We will have disagreements and perhaps now with more virulence.” On the other hand, another member of the PP, who asks to remain anonymous, suspects that his new role will inflam the young politician, aged 33: “Now he can do what he does best, shout.”
The break with the PP, predicts Luis Tudanca, the regional leader of the PSOE, will entail few changes. If anything, Gallardo’s spray will now also splash his former partner: “He will continue to be the same. It does not seem that the institutional role will slow him down much, although now he will spread his hatred. In any case, he will join the cemetery of vice-presidents into which Mañueco is turning the Cortes.”
This resignation brings with it an unusual scenario, with two former vice presidents in parliament. Mañueco’s first victim, Francisco Igea (formerly of Ciudadanos), when Mañueco dissolved the Junta and called for the polls to end up embracing Vox, poses a first revelation: “We will see if he was a champion of debate or not,” something that Gallardo boasted about. Igea considers that “a guy with a megaphone in front of a headquarters [la del PSOE en las algaradas contra la amnistía] “It is not very institutional” and that “he has never been left wanting, but now we will see him even more rough”. His predecessor wonders if he will act as an opposition by asking questions to the president and the councillors and doubts if his life will be much more relaxed: “He did not have many functions and he acted almost more as a spokesperson”.
Vox members privately admit that their colleague, after two years of diving into dialectical puddles, had received a warning from Madrid. The leadership pinched the pretty boy, sponsored by the leader, Santiago Abascal, recruited when he was looking for a dolphin for Castilla y León. The vice president sensed friendly fire when in April the newspaper Abc He published a report with Vox sources criticising him and praising the president of the Cortes, his party colleague Carlos Pollán. Anonymous voices attacked this rude style: “Gallardo is uncontrollable, when he has a microphone in front of him he goes wild. Now we don’t need that. We have to promote other types of profiles.” The aforementioned asked for, and obtained, support from his people. After that episode, Pollán gained relevance, and remains in charge of Parliament and with specific weight with his future decisions towards the PP. Gallardo complied and focused on a mantra, migration, with constant allusions to the “Moors.”
Routines
The change will also alter his political routines. Parliamentary sources say that “as a spokesperson you work as you want” and that they rarely attend the tedious committees, reserved for non-exclusive representatives, whose salary depends on attending these presentations. Gallardo will also avoid the events held throughout Castilla y León, a community with a tortuous road network. Sources from the Junta suggest that lately Mañueco’s team has been counter-scheduling events to give the president the important ones and “annoy” his deputy with minor issues or those with a worse schedule.
Gallardo also travelled to Europe to represent the community in regional discussions, a role he will no longer perform. He could, however, travel again to Poland and Hungary, where he attended meetings of ultra-conservative parties, although Poland has changed its orientation in recent months. The participants in this report, anonymous or not, point out a fact that Gallardo highlighted when saying goodbye: he has just become a father. Therefore, a source concludes, he will appreciate the calm: “The logical thing is that he will manage well, focus on the Plenary and on having his own agenda outside the Cortes, he will be very calm.”
#life #vice #president #Juan #GarcíaGallardo