Feijóo will choose between Dolors Montserrat and Manu Reyes to succeed Alejandro Fernández in the PP of Catalonia
A single movement on the board of the PP lists has been enough for more changes to be triggered. Such is the importance of the starting positions for the general elections. That change has been that of Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, who jumps from the ballot for Barcelona to that of Madrid, together with Alberto Núñez Feijóo. During the last months in Genoa there had been speculation that this position would correspond to the president of the PP of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández. But Feijóo not only has not offered him to be head of the list for Barcelona, but he probed him “informally to occupy an unspecified place on the list for Tarragona,” say sources from the national leadership.
And that, of course, means that Feijóo does not want him to continue leading the regional leadership of the party. This is confirmed to EL MUNDO by sources from the main opposition party, who point out that the doubt would be between the former Minister of Health and current spokesperson for the PP in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, and the former mayor of Casteldefells, Manu Reyes.. They are the two favorites to lead the PP of Catalonia “in a long-term project” after the party's regional congress. A conclave that is already playing, because Alejandro Fernández was elected in 2018. Although in the national leadership of the party there is no hurry and in any case it would necessarily have to be after the summer.
Feijóo's team values Fernández as one of the best speakers in the party, which is why they would like him to continue in the parliamentary sphere, but they agree that it is necessary to give an organic “impulse” to training in a community that is vital for the PP speech. In fact, in Genoa they believe that “it cannot be repeated” that their party is only present in 227 of the 947 Catalan municipalities. Not a quarter of the total. “We need to be the unifying force of constitutionalism again and occupy the electoral space of Ciudadanos and the PSC,” says a national leader.
offer rejected
Fernández has rejected the offer to work in Madrid as a deputy, and has done so with a strong message. «I would like to thank, with all my heart, the opportunity that my party offers me to return to the Congress of Deputies. But I stay in Catalonia ». These last three words are all capitalized in his Twitter message.. «At the time, I was very critical of those politicians who, at the first difficulty, went to Madrid and left an enormous feeling of abandonment here.. I will not fall into such a mistake,” he added.
The leader of the popular Catalans believes that “after 23-J we are going to relive episodes in Catalonia that will demand a strong voice to defend the rights and freedoms of non-nationalist Catalans”. In other words, he believes that the independence movement will resurface if the PP governs. «It will not be easy, but the march is going for me.. I am not going to abandon you,” he concluded.. The last sentence is also written in capital letters.
Until now, in the PP headquarters they gave Dolors Montserrat the highest percentage of possibilities to replace Fernández in the future. But the good result of Manu Reyes in Castelldefels has improved his chances. The former mayor of this important Barcelona town has repeated his victory and has only one councilor short of an absolute majority in the municipal elections on May 28. And now, after two legislatures of pacts against, he can seek a satisfactory alliance with Som Castelldefels. It is a new party born from a split from the PSC, and it has three councilors whose abstention would be enough to give Reyes the mayor's office.
In the case of Montserrat, she was already the first option that Feijóo considered for the Mayor of Barcelona. At that time, Genoa considered that Montserrat, former deputy secretary of Organization of the PP with Alicia Sánchez-Camacho and member of one of the families with the greatest historical weight among the popular Catalans, could occupy both the leadership of the candidacy for Barcelona and, come the case, the presidency of the PPC.
The current spokesperson for the Spanish PP in the European Parliament, and one of the party's benchmarks in Catalonia, is a person Feijóo likes because she would represent a “more sensitive” voice with Catalanism and the business sectors to which he aspires to return to seduce the PP. Although “deep down the candidate will be Feijóo”, they always repeat in the popular direction.