there will be no changes. The Central Electoral Board (JEC) does not see it as feasible to review the 30,000 null votes that the PSOE claimed so as not to definitively lose its twelfth seat in Madrid. A key chair, since the achievement of this by the PP leaves a climate of uncertainty for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.

After the Provincial Board of Madrid did not agree to carry out the review of these thousands of invalid Madrid ballots, the PSOE raised its demand to the JEC. Despite this, everything indicates that the highest instance of the electoral administration will not do so either, because to make such a request, he argues, some evidence of specific rulings must be presented.

In addition, it highlights that in many agreements where there is a general challenge such as the one sought by the PSOE, they do not have a long way to go.. Along these lines, they also state that null votes that have been protested at the polling stations would normally be reviewed.. If not, it's hard.

To support its decision, which will become official after the meeting on Thursday, August 3 at 11:30 a.m., the body cites as a precedent the case that involved Vox and the elections on May 28. Santiago Abascal's party filed an appeal against the Agreement of the Barcelona Zone Electoral Board on the scrutiny of the Ciudad Condal.

The claim of the requirement was that it be agreed to “repeat the general scrutiny of the city of Barcelona ordering to open the envelopes of each and every one of the invalid votes for examination and verification, considering as valid those votes in which the vote of VOX is recorded. with any of the two ballots validated by the Electoral Board”.

The JEC refused to recount the invalid votes, alleging: “What the appellant party intends is to repeat the scrutiny already carried out by the polling stations, a claim that has been repeatedly rejected by the Central Electoral Board when sufficient evidence of irregularities in the contested votes is not adduced. “. Something that, according to the organ, added to the “insufficient” reasons that Vox gave to carry out this review.

A DIFFERENTIAL SEAT

This intensity that the PSOE is printing on the count of the 30,000 votes in Madrid is key to understanding the future governability of Spain. And it is that with only 1,323 supports that separate the socialists from the popular ones in the province, from Ferraz all legal resources are being exhausted to recover the one that is now in the power of Carlos García Adanero.

An armchair whose history began when last Friday the foreign vote granted the deputy 137 to the PP. As a result of this increase, the ideological blocs that will take shape on August 17, the date on which the Congress is constituted, remain tied at 171. On the one hand, there is the one made up of PP (137), Vox (33) and UPN (1). In the other converge forces such as PSOE (121), Sumar (31), ERC (7), EH Bildu (6), PNV (5) and BNG (1).

Two formations remain in political limbo: the Canary Islands Coalition (1), whose future representative in the Lower House, Cristina Valido, declared this Monday on Cadena Ser that they are willing to maintain a “bilateral negotiation” with either of the two formations majority as long as “Canaries and their problems” are on the table. Although with two red lines: “the extreme right and the extreme left”, which eradicates Vox and Sumar from the equation.

The other group is Junts. Carles Puigdemont's party, which has 7 deputies and will foreseeably have the key to decide whether to make Sánchez president. A key, unless the Canary Coalition votes in favor of the socialist leader, which only fits yes. This would mean, as the parliamentary spokesperson for the independence party, Miriam Nogueras, already said, that Pedro Sánchez will not get that support “in exchange for nothing.”

“Am I the first?” Héctor Palencia Rubio asked the workers of the Congress of Deputies, who this Monday effectively became the first deputy to come to collect his credentials. The PP parliamentarian for Ávila, who even made the wrong room as a rookie in the Lower House that he is, ironically assumed that arriving before anyone else has a simple explanation: “It is what living in Ávila has.”

And the truth is that if this man from Avila, a technical public works engineer born in 1977, is proud of having lived all his life in the Castilian-Leonese city, in whose City Council he took his first steps as a politician. It has already been said by someone who has had him as his right hand in the last year, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco. De Palencia stressed that his “passion for Ávila” supports him.

The president of Castilla y León exalted his chief of staff in the Board since May 2022 to number one in Congress for Ávila. The bet turned out well, because the popular ones of Ávila won the victory in this 23-J in 215 of the 248 municipalities of the province, including the capital.

With a discreet profile and a great worker in the shadows, Palencia likes to put into practice one of the advice that his political mentor gave him in his day: Teresian patience.. As Saint Teresa de Jesús -or de Ávila- would write, “patience achieves everything”. In the case of Héctor Palencia, the ticket to Congress has arrived more than a decade after his first foray into the world of politics.

Deputy Secretary of Organization of the PP of Castilla y León, Héctor Palencia made his debut in the Government of his community in 2019 as director of Local Administration, to become the president's chief of staff three years later. Until then, his political experience was directly linked to management in the Ávila City Council, where he made his debut as a councilor in 2011.. He was also deputy mayor for City Services, Tourism and Historical Heritage and coordinating councilor for Tourism and Commerce.

It was precisely his political activity as a councilor that forced him to put one of his great passions aside: basketball.. After more than 11 years as president of the Óbila Club de Basket, Palencia said goodbye in 2012 to the team he helped found and led to the third professional category (LEB Silver).. “If someone tells us then, at the age of 23, that we were players and some youngsters, that 11 years later we were going to be in professional basketball, we would not believe it,” Palencia said in his farewell to the club. Nor would he imagine at that time that another 11 years later he would make his debut as a deputy in Congress.

In his curriculum today, his award for the best sports leader from Avila stands out, along with the Police Merit Cross with a white badge. But, in addition, Héctor Palencia was manager of a shopping center in his city and carried out security coordination tasks in works of the Ministry of Public Works in the province of Ávila. Avila by flag.

A worker from the Ministry of Equality leaves the building adorned with rainbow flags. It is not too hot at noon on calle Alcalá, in Madrid. It's Friday. The asphalt is soft. The man, dressed in a dark uniform, lights a cigarillo in a sliver of shadow. The brown wax of twisted tobacco drips with ash. “Irene Montero? Irene Montero is not here. She is on vacation. That's what they say in the ministry. Your security colleagues can help you better,” she resolves. Security colleagues do not give more information. Although the chief of staff of the still minister assures that she is not on vacation – “she continues to go to the ministry” -, in United We Can also talk about the days off that Montero has taken since the general elections on Sunday until, at least, on August 1.

On Tuesday he will lead the crisis meeting called to analyze the latest “sexist murders” together with representatives of the autonomous communities, Interior and Justice. 30 women have died from gender violence in 2023. On Friday the last victim was counted, a 26-year-old woman. Some voices comment on the intensity with which Montero has experienced the electoral campaign. angry. Sad. Or both things at the same time. Some whispers indicate that his closest circle has advised him to disconnect for a few days. The environment does not confirm it. He establishes a parapet, speaks of normality, warns that everything is going well in the last post of the long political funeral of Irene Montero. A sanitary cordon is deployed around it in which both Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz participate.. Nobody wants to know anything about her. Her days as a minister are numbered.

Irene Montero had the face of few friends at the last Council of Ministers, held after the victorious defeat of the PSOE in the general elections of 23-J. All the faces reflected the euphoria experienced since the end of the scrutiny, except his. Ione Belarra, who will occupy a seat in the Congress of Deputies, accompanied him in the condolences that hung on his face.

“I am unable to see right now what Yolanda Díaz can do with Irene Montero. It is also unknown what role Ione Belarra will play. If you are going to be in the parliamentary group or if you are going to be in the Government. If there is an investiture, the new government will not want to suffer the contradictions and tensions caused by Podemos in the last three and a half years. That is not going to happen,” says a Socialist deputy close to the Prime Minister. “It will be up to Yolanda Díaz to manage it. We do not know the terms of the agreement. Depends on how you form the alliances. In the case of Montero, everything seems to indicate that she will not repeat as minister. They didn't even count on her as an electoral claim.”

The Organic Law for the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, known as the Law of yes is yes, was the turning point in his mandate in Equality. Politics conceived as a factory of tension soon chronicled Irene Montero in the controversy. The approach was related to the way of being in the institutions exercised by Pablo Echenique, who was spokesman for Podemos until 2019, secretary of the party's Program, and already a former deputy. They maintained a constant level, the line that will mark in the future how far certain politicians have reached in this frontier new age.

Montero accused the Popular Party of “promoting rape culture”, labeled the judiciary as “macho” and “impartial”, landed in Mediaset to support Rocío Carrasco, sided with Juana Rivas, sponsored the Institute's campaign of Women valued at 84,000 euros whose design turned out to be a potpourri of stolen images and the number of sexual offenders released through the loophole opened by legislative errors of yes is yes reaches 1,155 this month. 1,155 nails in the coffin of his political career. For this reason, Pedro Sánchez, at the beginning of the campaign, struck down his aspirations in the Onda Cero interview. “There is the impression that there is a citizen, a man between 40 and 50 years old, who has seen on some occasions that some speeches have been uncomfortable for them.”

“She is a good minister”

Ramón Espinar has a different opinion. “I think that Irene Montero has done a good job. She has been a good minister. She has only had the serious and notorious mistake of the law of yes is yes. Irene Montero's problem is her management as an apparatchik. She has been the executing arm of the “consecutive and incessant expulsions, abandonments, resignations and removal of many people from Podemos. This role as a sideshow for Podemos has made it difficult for him to coexist with other left-wing actors in a wide space,” he says in reference to Sumar.

Nor does he agree with those who consider Montero's position during the campaign elegant. “No. On the contrary. He has established a strategy in Podemos of permanent confrontation. has boycotted it. It's deeply serious. I already see movements in Podemos and I have heard comments along the lines of using the five deputies to negotiate its continuity “. With the scrutiny still hot, Ione Belarra was the first to open fire on Yolanda Díaz. “The objective of what remains of training is to achieve the continuity of Montero. That's what Podemos has been.”

Yolanda Díaz and Irene Montero, at the Javi Martínez El Mundo Congress

The residents of La Navata, the Galapagar urbanization where the Montero-Iglesias family lives, have seen the founder of Podemos and the head of Equality during the campaign “make a normal life”. Before they were seen more. by the supermarket. Taking the dog to the vet. Then, a few weeks ago, they reappeared. Here nobody bothers you. They live in peace”, several neighbors consulted by Crónica agree.

A deputy from the purple party, who prefers to remain anonymous, does not believe that the electorate is watching over his political corpse. “Funeral? I would say that the media and political right has subjected Montero to public torture. What has made a dent in her has been the persecution, that ordeal. The adversary has a lot of media power. He is not going to leave politics. The relevant leaders of the country always have moments when they occupy rearguard positions. I would not speak of their political death.”

Surviving means finding accommodation in a very small party “made in its image and likeness.” Meanwhile, he is dying.

In Compromís there has always been a hidden debate, which comes and goes depending on the circumstances and the political moment: how and when to move from a coalition of parties to a single party for all purposes. The fact that this dilemma has not yet been resolved is what has ended up causing the last and definitive internal war to explode, which is none other than the one that is being fought between the two main legs of one of the partners of Sumar and Yolanda Díaz.

What is decided on the battlefield is the control of a coalition that lived as a real shock the departure of its former leader and indisputable reference, the former Valencian vice president Mónica Oltra, dragged in court for the cause of the abuses of her ex-husband to a minor under guardianship. On one side is his party, Iniciativa, which despite not being the majority partner, achieved with Oltra a share of power that was difficult to contest by the old Bloc. On the other side is this party, renamed Més, to which the current spokesman in the Valencian Parliament, Joan Baldoví, belongs.

Més is the majority party of Compromís, but it always remained in the background behind Oltra. With her offside, what Més is looking for is a rebalancing of forces for the post-Oltra era. That is, to recover ground and power within the coalition. After the electoral truce, Compromís has not taken long to blow up, being on the verge of breaking due to the election of the territorial senator that corresponded to this formation.

There is another factor that helps to understand this latest crisis: the loss of institutional power after the debacle of 28-M. In this sense, a benchmark in Més such as Enric Morera -he was one of its founders-, had been left without accommodation for this legislature. He did not enter the Valencian Parliament as a deputy, an institution that he presided over for the last eight years. That's why Més wanted to reinstate him in the Senate, for which Iniciativa wanted his former senator Carles Mulet.

The rift in Compromís is already public and notorious, to the point that the deputies of Iniciativa refused in the regional parliament to vote with those of Més on Morera's candidacy for territorial senator. While PP -in alliance with Vox- and PSOE smoothly carried out the candidacies of who will be their senators, the Compromís parliamentary group voted divided.

For the deputy spokesperson for Compromís, Aitana Mas (Initiative), Més's movement is truly “disloyalty”. Of “extreme seriousness”, in the words of the co-spokesman of the Initiative, Alberto Ibáñez, because “it breaks trust and the agreement”.

Above all because it also comes after Baldoví's party also placed one of their own (Maria Josep Amigó) on the Table of the Cortes. In the last legislature, the spokesperson in the Cortes also corresponded to Més (Baldoví's predecessor was Papi Robles), but because Iniciativa exercised the highest representation of Compromís in the Valencian Government. Mas herself was the vice president of the Generalitat in substitution of Oltra. Without being in the Government, the visibility of Initiative is considerably reduced.

In its struggle with the old Bloc, Iniciativa has announced that it is leaving the Compromís bodies until its partner is able to redirect the situation. Fuentes de Més, however, call this “unilateral reaction” absolutely “disproportionate”. In the surroundings of Baldoví a clear message is sent: the blood will not reach the river, but “time is needed” to rebuild the bridges that, to this day, are broken.

The re-election of María Chivite as president of Navarra is blocked and the countdown of the electoral repetition begins to accelerate. Geroa Bai -the nationalist coalition of which the PNV is a part- has rejected the last offer of the PSOE of Navarra that included the management of Health. A proposal communicated in two discreet meetings held this morning and that have once again shown the castling of the two partners. Geroa Bai has urged Chivite this afternoon to seek a government pact with Bildu if he does not want to govern with them.

The re-election of María Chivite is delayed despite the fact that the results of 28-M allowed her to reissue her agreement with Geroa Bai and Contigo Navarra (left-wing alliance with Podemos) and the parliamentary support of EH Bildu. The celebration of the 'Sanfermines', first, and the calling of the general elections on 23-J, later, delayed some contacts between PSN (11 deputies) with Geroa Bai (7) who came to demand a first “bilateral” negotiation that messed up the process.

Two months after the regional elections, Geroa Bai has confirmed today that the negotiations are still blocked because, according to his version, the Socialist Party of Navarra does not accept a distribution of power in the regional Executive similar to that of its first agreement in 2019, nor introduces mechanisms that guarantee a programmatic agreement that has not been closed. The representatives of Geroa Bai María Solana and Pablo Azcona have accused the PSN of “punishing” Geroa Bai in the negotiations with the presumed objective of preventing his presence in the next government of Navarra.

Solana has invited the PSN to “explore” a government pact with EH Bildu despite the fact that Chivite has maintained that he will not sit down to negotiate with Arnaldo Otegi's party. “Geroa Bai will not oppose it in any case”, insisted the representative of Geroa Bai. The nationalist coalition hardens its public criticism of the PSN after admitting that it has been offered to manage the Ministry of Health. Solana has warned that they have not been guaranteed “financial sufficiency” or “programmatic principles” to address structural changes in Navarre health.

Geroa Bai has also demanded that the PSOE clarify whether it is willing to negotiate with the president of UPN Javier Esparza a change in the direction of the vote of the only regionalist deputy in Congress. Solana and Azcona have insinuated that Esparza's recognition that Núñez Feijóo does not have support to be president could make it easier for UPN to end up voting for Sánchez. The UPN leader has maintained that his formation will always support an investiture of Feijóo before and after 23-J despite the electoral battle maintained by UPN and PP in the last two elections.

A path flanked by huge plane trees leads to an orchard that in the hot Majorcan summer seems like a mirage. The incessant sound of the cicadas reminds us of the heatwave, but the visitor advances along this promenade with the promise and hope of cooling off and delighting in what has been baptized as the most beautiful garden in the world.. These are the Alfabia gardens, in Bunyola, at the foot of the Tramuntana, one of the oldest and most emblematic possessions on the island. It is, along with the Granja de Esporles y Raixa, the most important rustic land that can be visited on the island. And the Kings and their daughters have visited it to complete the tour of these three points, so well known by the Mallorcans. A visit with which they close a circle that began in 2013 at La Granja, continued in 2014 at La Raixa and ended yesterday at La Alfabia.

The history of this property is linked to the history of the birth of the island. Thus, when James I conquered Majorca in 1229, he distributed his land among the families most loyal to the Crown.. Among them, the ancestors of the Zaforteza, who eight centuries later still maintain this property and its surrounding lands.. Three generations of the Zaforteza received the Royal Family at their home yesterday. The place is so important to the history of Mallorca that when Queen Elizabeth II visited the Balearic Islands in 1860, she was delighted with the beauty of these gardens.. Since then, the locals call it “the queen's garden”.

A century and a half later, Don Felipe and Doña Letizia, accompanied by Leonor and Sofía, have made a journey similar to that of Isabel II, because since the great reform that the family undertook in the house in 1760 the environment has changed little.

After eight in the afternoon, the entourage of the Royal Family parked their cars at the entrance to the highway from Palma to Sóller through which the Alfabia is accessed. It was the first appearance of the Kings and their children on the island this summer, and it occurred two days after the arrival of Doña Letizia, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía to Marivent, where they settled on Saturday, three days after Felipe SAW. The King and Queen traveled in one car, while the Heiress and her sister arrived in another for this private visit, off the schedule but held after the property closed its doors to the public. The Queen chose a fuchsia dress, a basket and flat espadrilles; Leonor wore a green suit and beige espadrilles while Sofía chose a white printed dress and also wore the typical Mallorcan shoe. Don Felipe opted for a linen shirt and light pants.

Like the rest of the tourists, the Kings entered along the path of banana trees, which leads to a trellis walkway with water features on the sides that the owners planted in 1750, with the great reform. The garden, heavily influenced by the English style of the time, has a tropical area with palm trees and a pond with water lilies. A musical thread from a string quartet and the sound of water welcomed the family in this orchard. Accompanied at all times by Cristina Zaforteza, one of the three sisters who currently manage the estate, the King and Queen and their daughters have also seen the entrance to the house, on whose façade various styles converge, and on the portal there is a coffered ceiling of XIV century very well preserved and which leads to a typical Mallorcan patio.

The idea of visiting tourist spots on the island during their stay in Mallorca was an initiative of Don Felipe and Doña Letizia from their time as Princes that took years to settle down and become a tradition. Thus, until in 2012 they did not get on the Sóller train, they did not manage to make their own family inns in places whose presence gives relevance to the area. After the pandemic, in 2021 they visited the monastery of Lluc and last year the Cartuja de Valldemosa. They are all private visits, which do not appear on the agenda and which serve for the heiress and her sister to soak up the culture of the island to which her family is so closely linked. In fact, both Leonor and Sofía were very interested and curious during the Alfabia tour, whose history they had previously reported.

The young women, smiling, carefully followed the explanations of their parents, who when they share outings with them change their faces to a relaxed and familiar one.. They cannot hide their pride in a Princess and an Infanta at a decisive vital point. Doña Leonor will enter the General Military Academy on August 17. The young woman faces these three years of military training with enthusiasm and aware of the future that they have prepared for her. These days in Marivent, Doña Leonor sees through the daily conversations and the example how a Head of State works. That has left him one more day to participate in the Copa del Rey Mapfre, which started this Monday and ended with Aifos, the sailboat captained by His Majesty, fourth. The King later lamented that it could have gone better, although at the same time he consoled himself with the fact that it could also have gone worse.

However, the absence of institutional activity and although the Head of State does not make political pronouncements, the King does follow events closely, since these days are a small parenthesis before beginning, at the end of August, the round of consultations with representatives of all parliamentary groups to propose a candidate to form a government. But politics did not enter the Alfabia and the beauty of an exquisite orchard cared for with care by the same family for centuries.

The Heiress and her sister are not expected to have any more commitments these days, beyond a family dinner in the restaurants they go to with the rest of the family.

At the end of the visit, the Family met with the press. The King regretted not having come to a place with so much history before, “it is a way of promoting the interior of the island”, he said. Don Felipe, who this year celebrates half a century of summers in Mallorca, has said that “time goes by very quickly” and that he keeps “many memories” of so many vacations on the island.

While the King and Queen and their daughters were in Sóller, Queen Sofía was in Motril, where she inaugurated the museum that has become the Villa Astrida residence, which was the summer home of Fabiola and Balduino de los Belgas. This year marks the xxx anniversary of the death of the king who married the Spanish aristocrat. For this reason, Felipe VI took advantage of his visit to Motril last June to approach Villa Astrida in private. Doña Sofía has really enjoyed the tranquility of the surroundings, while the Queen has marveled at hundred-year-old holm oaks

The Epidemiological Surveillance services are investigating a possible food poisoning of some 40 people, who attended a wedding in Peñaranda de Bracamonte (Salamanca), a celebration after which a woman died, without knowing for the moment if the death could be due to Is the cause.

Sources from the Territorial Delegation of the Junta de Castilla y León in Salamanca have explained that some forty people, with symptoms of food poisoning, have had to receive health care.

Those affected attended a wedding at a local establishment, where specialists are taking samples to find out what could have caused the event.

The same celebration was attended by a woman, who has been killed, without it being known for the moment if the death had to do with possible food poisoning.