Minister Bolaños throws a dart at Ayuso's 'number two' in the PP of Madrid: "You are the pinnacle, the penthouse"

The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, brought to the Senate this Tuesday the controversial purchase of the luxury penthouse by Isabel Díaz Ayuso's Government during his confrontation with Alfonso Serrano, general secretary of the PP of Madrid. "We knew the level of the number one of the Popular Party of Madrid. Today we have known the level of the number two," he began before concluding that "you are the pinnacle, the penthouse, of the PP of Madrid".

Bolaños presented Serrano as Ayuso's right-hand man and alluded to the "penthouse deals at the taxpayer's expense". The reference pointed to the Chamberí property acquired by the public company Planifica Madrid for 6.3 million euros. The regional Executive defended that it would serve as a temporary office during the works of the Real Casa de Correos, although it decided to put it up for sale after the operation became known.

The exchange occurred during an interpellation in the Senate plenary session on the impact of the Democratic Memory Law on the electoral census. Serrano accused the Government of converting the granting of nationality to descendants of Spaniards into an "electoral engineering operation" and maintained that an instruction from the Ministry unduly broadened the scope of the so-called 'grandchildren's law'.

The minister defended the measure as a reparation for the families of those who had to leave Spain during the Civil War and the dictatorship. He also recalled that Alberto Núñez Feijóo committed in Buenos Aires, in November 2022, to promote a nationality law for the grandchildren of Spaniards abroad and that the PP's electoral program for 2023 included a similar proposal. "Mr. Feijóo saying the opposite of what he says today", he reproached.

Bolaños also confronted the PP with its previous decisions on nationality. "The PP nationalized the descendants of Sephardic Jews, but abstained with the Sahrawis. They are a weather vane", he stated before accusing the 'populares' of "hypocrisy" and "weakness" in the face of the far-right. According to the calculations presented by the minister, the nearly 400,000 potential affected would represent about 40,000 votes if the usual participation of the Electoral Census of Absent Residents is maintained, distributed among 52 constituencies.

Serrano has closed his speech by warning Bolaños of possible judicial consequences and mentioning several prisons from the tribune, including Valdemoro, Alcalá-Meco and Soto del Real. The minister has responded by accusing the PP of adopting a "thuggish style" and of constantly threatening its political adversaries with prison.