Adanero enters, Rodríguez Palacios leaves: the CERA vote causes a last-minute substitution in Congress

SPAIN / By Cruz Ramiro

The recount of the CERA vote, that of Spaniards residing abroad, has given a little joy to the Popular Party in a bitter week for those of Feijóo. The popular ones win one more seat in Madrid, which the socialists lose, who will now need the positive vote of Junts —and not the abstention— to ensure that Pedro Sánchez is invested again as president of the Government.

But if there are two protagonists in the flesh of this change, they are the socialist Javier Rodríguez Palacios and the popular Carlos García Adanero. The first, because he loses a seat that he caressed with the tips of his fingers, and the second, because he wins a seat that he has already occupied in this legislature (which began in UPN and ended in the Mixed Group) and will continue to be a protagonist in Congress. , where he is one of the deputies who has captured the most spotlights with his interventions against the Government.

Two 'bounced' from 28-M

The socialist Javier Rodríguez Palacios was mayor of Alcalá de Henares, the third largest city in the Community, until the municipal elections on May 28 took away his baton to give it to the popular Judith Piquet. Even so, he was optimistic about keeping it on his Twitter account.

Rodríguez Palacios is an agricultural engineer, and after working in Brussels, he joined the team of Minister Elena Espinosa as Zapatero's first executive. In 2007, he was elected councilor for the first time in the Alcalá de Henares town hall, where he took over the mayoralty after the 2015 municipal elections and remained eight years as the town's first mayor.

Adanero, for his part, is one of the best-known deputies in Congress, where he has become a protagonist in the last legislature for his harsh speeches against Pedro Sánchez and against the Basque nationalist parties, especially EH Bildu. Born in Talavera de la Reina, he has carried out all his political activity in Navarra, where he studied Law. He joined UPN at the age of 19, where he developed his entire career, beginning in the Barañáin City Council, in a few years in which his colleagues were assassinated by the terrorist group ETA. From there he went to the Navarrese Parliament, until in 2019 he was elected to represent Navarra Suma (a coalition of PP, UPN and Ciudadanos) in the Congress of Deputies.

His negative vote on the labor reform, together with that of his partner Sergio Sayas and against the guidelines of his party, led to both being suspended from militancy and later leaving the foralista formation and being accused of transfugismo. After his departure from UPN, Adanero was chosen to head the PP lists in the Pamplona City Council on 28-M, elections in which the popular won two councilors. Later, he entered the PP list for Madrid for Congress as number 15, which will finally allow him to narrowly return to the Upper House.