The week that Vox exploded and put the Government of the Balearic Islands in check

The halls of the Balearic Parliament woke up last Monday, January 29, with the rhythm of any winter Monday. The session had not started after the Christmas break and the parliamentary groups had planned the usual press conferences, one after the other throughout the morning, to report on their activities. The calm began to turn into unrest when Vox announced that they were canceling their press conference and would limit themselves to making a statement without questions. “It will be something that will raise many questions but that will not be answered today,” they commented from the game. Minutes later, a petition from the ultra group addressed to the Parliament table was entered into the chamber registry in which they announced the expulsion from the parliamentary group of Patricia de las Heras, president of the party in the Balearic Islands, and Gabriel Le Senne, president of the autonomous parliament. The storm that has blown up Santiago Abascal's party on the islands and that has pushed the government of Marga Prohens (PP) to the precipice had only just begun.

The five deputies expelled their two colleagues appealing to internal circumstances and with the aim of achieving group unity. They opened the thunder of some disagreements that had been going on for a long time and divided the group of seven deputies between those related to the national leadership of the party, who abided by its orders and directives, and those who maintained their independence on certain issues without saying anything. Amen to the postulates of Madrid. The internal struggle for power had been brewing for a long time. “This speaks about Vox and the people who make it up,” says Xisco Cardona. This was the eighth autonomous deputy of Vox in the Balearic Islands until the confrontation he had with the five rebels over the blocking of the spending ceiling of the budgets, which he did not want to support because it went against Madrid's guidelines, led him to leave the party. last October. He was the seed of a crisis that has now erupted and that the party flatly denied at the time.

The crisis got muddied on Wednesday with the dissemination of a report, attributed to the provincial president Patricia de las Heras, which attributed economic irregularities to the former Vox candidate for the Presidency of the islands, Jorge Campos. The current national deputy was the leader of Actúa, the local party that merged with Vox and provided Abascal's party with a territorial base in the Balearic Islands that it lacked at the time. The wayward deputies are close to him and many see him as the shadow leader of the current uprising. Speaking to Fibwi, a local Balearic radio station, last Thursday, Campos denied any involvement in the crisis: “I am not and have not been in the current conflict, although some who cannot live without me believe that I am the one directing it.” ”. He called the accusations contained in the report “false, libelous and defamatory” and announced lawsuits against its authors, since De las Heras “has not admitted his authorship,” he added. In a conciliatory tone, Campos expressed confidence in the actions of the party's bodies and that the crisis “in one way or another will be redirected,” reports Miguel González.

The outbreak surprised the Balearic president, the popular Marga Prohens, in Menorca on Monday. The next day, in Formentera. And the next two days in Brussels. During the first 48 hours of the debacle, he limited himself to repeating over and over again that the situation only affected Parliament, precisely the place where he needs to rely on Vox to carry out his measures. The PP holds the majority with its 25 deputies and the crutch of the seven from Vox and if they disappear it will be doomed to the precipice of the minority since the left together has 25 supports. It is hostage to an agreement of 110 measures signed with the ultras that was signed by the parliamentary spokesperson of the PP with one of the leaders of the rebellion, spokesperson Idoia Ribas, now provisionally suspended from militancy. The president of Vox, the expelled De las Heras, already warned that there would be consequences if Prohens allied himself with the five turncoats. “Relying on turncoats would not seem like ethical action to us,” she said.

“It seems that the PP is seeking to govern the autonomous community with five turncoats and it is beginning to be delicate and dangerous,” says PSOE deputy, Iago Negueruela. The socialist insults President Prohens that she has remained “on a surprise tour” outside the islands during what he considers the “biggest inter-institutional crisis” in many years. “She wants to act like nothing is happening, but it is,” he says. It will be Parliament that resolves the dilemma about who is the real Vox, whether the two expelled people whom the party recognizes as its own or the five suspended deputies in Vox who have remained with the parliamentary group. In a maneuver to try to delay his departure from the presidency of Parliament, the expelled Le Senne obtained the support of PP and PSOE to request a legal report from the chamber's lawyers on his situation that would resolve whether the regulations protect his expulsion from the parliamentary group. . Some deputies believe that the regulation is clear and that Le Senne's request has very few signs of succeeding.

The internal coup of the five rebels not only had repercussions at the parliamentary level. The reprisals within the party were immediate and on Monday the vice president of Vox, Ignacio Garriga, called them “subjects” who had operated “out of personal ambition.” Three days later, the party's resolution that dictated the precautionary suspension of militancy of the five deputies arrived in Parliament. A measure that some believe the group of rebels did not expect and that has led them to begin to subtly retract their sails. They went from running to preside over Parliament to replace Le Senne to lowering their expectations by showing themselves willing to give it up. On Thursday they asked for a meeting with their expelled teammate to try to calm things down.

“Meeting by order of Abascal”

“The meeting was by order of Abascal,” says a left-wing deputy. The rebels Sergio Rodríguez and Agustín Buades held a fifteen-minute meeting with Le Senne with the aim of building bridges and reducing the tension of recent days. At night, the ultra convened the table that had to accept the Més per Mallorca proposal against transfuguismo, which seeks to reform the regulations by emergency means so that the deputies expelled from their party become non-attached deputies. “We have thought that it is better to process the reform of the regulations normally,” Le Senne communicated to the members of the Board and the spokespersons of the parties. A maneuver that stages a truce between both sides, who want to reduce the heightened tension of recent days.

In their retreat, the five rebels now open the door to annulling the expulsion of their two companions, although they say that everything will depend on the decisions made by the national leadership of the party. “It will depend on the positioning of the internal organs of our party. We are not going to talk about any red line, we have our hand outstretched to the internal organs,” says Ribas. The PP of the islands also works to try to calm the spirits between both sides and recognizes contacts with both parties so that the situation reaches a successful conclusion, something they need to maintain the majority. At the mome
nt there is no clear way out of the crisis and plenary sessions in Parliament begin again on Tuesday. We will have to see how long the calm lasts.

_