Ayuso rules out but does not kill the ghost of Feijóo's succession: "You look at him with a magnifying glass"

The fiasco of 23-J has reactivated the debate on the leadership of the PP silenced a year and a half ago. And all the spotlights point once again to Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The president of the Community of Madrid, always challenged by her supposed political aspirations, has gotten used to living on the trigger and this time is no exception. The woman from Madrid lives in a kind of continuous suspicion, forced to explain and clarify the succession of rumors. “Everything he says is looked at with a magnifying glass,” say party sources in the region, who endorse the leader's closed support for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “What the media and bases say is one thing, and what she says is another,” they add..

The regional president used the Executive Committee and the National Board of Directors of the PP in Madrid this Wednesday to discard herself. But he failed to drive away the ghost of the succession of Feijóo, on whom Ayuso and Juanma Moreno closed ranks yesterday. The only possible leadership is that of the Galician, riveted the two barons with the most authority in the party. The bulk of the questions from the journalists to the Madrid president pointed in the same direction, mentioning the words of Esperanza Aguirre, who hinted the day before that the future of the party depends on her, and the chants in favor of Ayuso during the very electoral night present. “It cannot be that on Thursday we were at a rally with President Feijóo, applauding him and giving him our support, and on Tuesday throwing him off a bridge. We are not a party that works like this, we are not podemitas”, Ayuso stressed regarding the statements of the former leader, who demanded a change of leadership in the party.

Sunday's episode in Genoa raised the tension at the worst possible moment and revealed the extent to which the succession debate has broken into the internal cadres of the party, always under the threat of a new rift. The faces said it all. Publicly, it is a taboo, and even Ayuso tried this Wednesday to throw balls out to bury the speculation, but no one escapes that it is the great topic of conversation since election night.

Ayuso's appearance was a kind of denial of what was said in recent days. “Of course it has to be the candidate [Feijóo]. It would be nonsense and not listen to the mandate of the polls,” said the Madrid leader about who should lead the PP in a hypothetical electoral repetition. The internal fight, at least for the moment, is parked. Her environment assures that she receives with some surprise the endless number of pools that arise around her, despite the national profile of the president and the messages launched in recent months, sometimes contradictory with the national leadership itself.. In Genoa, in fact, they do not hide their discomfort and discomfort for some situations experienced that feed this theory.

“Everything the president says is highly scrutinized and interpreted, but she is always very clear and transparent in her interventions.. Today he has made it very clear”, they point out in the PP of Madrid, alluding to the press conference after the board of directors. During the meeting, according to sources consulted, the same message was released. “What he has said before the media is the same thing that has moved us all. It is a real support for Feijóo. Not because of her or because of him, but because of the importance of the moment”, details a member of the party's executive in Madrid, who confirms that the support of the Madrid formation for the leadership is “100%”..

The reality, however, is that a sector of the party sees in Isabel Díaz Ayuso the perfect antidote to defeat Pedro Sánchez. Also to corner and keep Vox at bay, although many times their speeches are intermingled. Aguirre expressed it in public this week, but the truth is that the feeling that she has to be in charge of redirecting the situation is widespread.. “Her results support her, but it is obvious that with such importance everything she says is going to bring tail. For the good and for the bad”, maintains another of the voices consulted.

In Andalusia they believe it

Ayuso's support for Feijóo is also credible in other territories, such as Andalusia. The barony directed by Juanma Moreno is seen as a kind of opposite path to that of Madrid. The message in the PP is clear regarding these two souls: the two add up and are necessary for the party to be successful. But in the new popular bastion there are no doubts about the veracity of the commitment shown by the president of the Community of Madrid. “He knows that the next president of Spain will be Feijóo, as everyone in the party knows,” they point out from the environment of Malaga. In San Telmo, they remember that the president of the Community of Madrid “has helped Feijóo” and will continue to do so, because the PP of Madrid is one of the “pillars” of the project that he leads.

#Andalusia is the community where the vote for the PP has grown the most and the one that contributes the most deputies. And that is great news. @NunezFeijoo is the president preferred by the Spanish and is already working to try to form a government.

You have our support to do it. pic.twitter.com/Lh57Rvfpal

– Juanma Moreno (@JuanMa_Moreno) July 25, 2023

In the Andalusian PP, they do not expect “any movement” from Isabel Díaz Ayuso to coup and seize power in Genoa, according to Fran M. Goofy. “She is intelligent and knows that this is not the time,” says another popular source, who also abounds that the Madrid woman has a kind of pending debt with the president of the PP. He thus refers to the tragic succession of Pablo Casado, who singled out the president for the commissions that her brother charged and cast shadows of suspicions of corruption on her. “Feijóo took a brown from him in his day,” insists this Andalusian popular leader.

This position is compatible with certain doubts about the behavior of the baroness that show in other territories. “If she moves improperly against Feijóo, the same in Madrid cheers her on, but in the rest of Spain they don't like betrayals,” says another popular baron. This leader focuses on the statements of Esperanza Aguirre, who has suggested that the future of the PP goes through Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “She could not be and since it could not be, it has to be whoever she says,” explains this source, who considers that Aguirre's preferences do not have to be in tune with those of the party as a whole..

The current model of primaries existing in the PP is the same that exalted Pablo Casado after the militants overwhelmingly opted for Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría in the first phase of the process. Feijóo had the intention of modifying it, but he has not had time, which is logical if one takes into account that he has been focused on three elections since his arrival in Genoa: the Andalusian elections in June 2022, the municipal and regional elections in May and the general elections this year. sunday july 23. This double round system gives a kind of insurance to the party structures to end up deciding who is the leader. In the event that Feijóo ends up leaving the leadership of the PP if he does not manage to be sworn in as president, the process would be opened.

A veteran leader of the party, who has gone through all the existing positions —with the exception of minister and regional president—, is convinced that the party would not allow Isabel Díaz Ayuso to end up in Genoa, precisely because of her similarities with Esperanza Aguirre and that Madrid model of understanding the PP. This position coincides precisely with the election of Núñez Feijóo as leader after the forced resignation of Casado. And it is an amendment to the entirety of that famous phrase of the Madrid president: “Madrid is Spain within Spain”.