What should be the norm in a democratic country has become a total - and worrying - exception. After ten months without speaking, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will hold a bilateral meeting next Monday, January 19. And all this in a context of total confrontation between a central government supported by an amalgam of parties with, on so many occasions, even opposing interests, and a Popular Party with antithetical internal voices and, moreover, dependent on the most populist far-right embodied by Vox.
So much so that this past Wednesday Feijóo stated that he would attend the meeting at the Moncloa Palace driven by "respect for institutions" but excusing himself by saying he would not "whitewash or rescue" Pedro Sánchez. As if the fact that the President of the Government and the leader of the opposition meet implied, de facto, a submission of one to the other or vice versa. On the contrary, the fact that both engage in dialogue should be logical and what would bring health to a democratic country like Spain. Spaniards already know that the PP and the PSOE are different parties, with different visions for the country, but the fact that the leaders of both parties engage in dialogue strengthens, precisely, the pluralistic spirit of a democracy.
In this regard, sources from the national leadership of the PP consulted by 'ElConstitucional.es' assure that, because they are "a party of the State," and for that reason alone, Feijóo will attend the meeting with Sánchez next Monday. "There are issues such as foreign policy that cannot depend on a minority and that can seriously condition Spain's position as a country," justify the same 'popular' sources, while, as an indispensable addendum, they reiterate that "meeting is not an approach to Sánchez." "These are matters of national security," Feijóo's party warns this newspaper.
Feijóo, subject to Vox and the inability to control territorial factions
Feijóo's discourse is understandable. The PP is suffering a vote leakage, as the latest polls tend to show, from the PP to Vox. This is precisely the current maximum electoral concern of Génova 13. It is no coincidence, therefore, that nothing remains of that strategy of 'fishing' in the waters of "discontented moderate socialist voters with Sánchez" that permeated the 'popular' electoral campaign of the last national elections on July 23. Now the niche is very different: they seek to convince their most ultra electorate, willing to sail with Santiago Abascal's party, that the Popular Party can offer them the same but without so much 'caffeine'. That, and incidentally get some who are already in Vox's waters to return to the PP's fold. And Vox knows it. It is no coincidence that Abascal has set Feijóo as his true adversary, not Sánchez.
It's not just the populist far-right, to which the PP has submitted itself out of pure electoral interest, that is the main cause of the hardening of the discourse of a Feijóo who came to moderate politics in Spain. It is also due to the inability of Génova 13 to control, at the territorial level, factions that are completely out of control. Especially in Madrid, with an Ayuso who, ideologically and formally, would not be out of place at all in Santiago Abascal's party. And this is not an opinion. It is information.
Precisely, **a very prominent 'popular' who held authority in previous national leaderships** dissects, in conversation with 'ElConstitucional.es', **Feijóo's big mistake from the start of his national journey**: creating a very small inner circle of his close confidants **who only work to get the PP president to 'ascend' to president of the Government**. In other words, they have neglected the party in its territorial breadth and complexity
Genoa 13, with few exceptions, is fighting for and for Feijóo to replace Pedro Sánchez as head of the central government. And, certainly, even with all that, they haven't achieved it, at least not yet. The rest of the party, at the level of autonomous communities, behaves like a true taifa kingdom in which the ultra Ayuso coexists with the centrist Alfonso Rueda and the 'whip of Vox' María Guardiola. In colloquial terms, this can be described as a complete mess.
In summary, Ayuso does and says what is most convenient for her, even systematically going against the national direction of her party, **because not only do Feijóo and his leadership allow it, but, what's more, they protect her.** Undoubtedly, a grave strategic error that could cost Feijóo, for the second time, the presidency of the Government of Spain.
