Fear in the PP of not joining with Vox if there is a repeat election: "It is a risk for Feijóo"

Who benefits from a repeat election? Since the last elections on July 23, the question has been recurring. The party plumbers scrutinize every piece of information, draw scenarios, correct errors and, to a greater or lesser extent, do not rule out that on January 14 we will have to return to the polls. The a priori answer is that the PP would be the most interested. Alberto Núñez Feijóo is four seats away from being sworn in as President of the Government. “Only four,” they remark on Génova Street, where their numbers tell them that, if there is a “second round,” they would be able to add with Vox the 176 deputies necessary to conquer Moncloa..

The optimism of the national leadership collides, as already happened in the electoral campaign, with the fear expressed to El Confidencial from various sectors of the party. “An election is a total risk,” say popular parliamentary sources, who warn that the best scenario for Feijóo is to go to the opposition.. The analysis they make is that, even if the result improves, if a “sufficient majority” is not achieved to govern, the Galician would have to leave office.. “Then we would have a leadership and project problem,” point out the same sources..

In the polls that have been published, there is agreement that the PP would considerably improve its results. The last one, from Sigma Dos for El Mundo, gives it 147 compared to the current 137, but the decline of Santiago Abascal's team, which goes from 33 to 28, places them in a tie at 175 with the so-called “progressive bloc” that They make up PSOE, Sumar, Bildu, ERC, PNV, Junts and BNG. There is also a transfer of socialist voters to Feijóo, but insufficient to create an alternative to Sánchez and his parliamentary partners.

“The amnesty is scandalous, but since it has not materialized, it has no electoral impact,” justifies a territorial leader of those labeled as centrists.. The fear among high-ranking popular officials is born from this same conclusion. If Sánchez calls new elections, it will mean that he has not reached an agreement with the Catalan independentists. What would apparently be a failure would end up becoming an electoral asset given that the president could claim that he has not given in to the demands of the fugitive Carles Puigdemot.. Sánchez would thus appeal to the moderate socialist with whom the PP flirts. Felipe González and the old guard would go from being in front to being behind.

Sánchez has never spoken openly about the measure of grace. In fact, delegating to deputy Óscar Puente the reply to Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the failed investiture was part of Moncloa's strategy to prevent the president from “going down into the mud” in defending the amnesty for those prosecuted for the referendum. illegal October 1. The presidential advisors have always had plan B in the bedroom, which would involve going to the polls again with a candidate who keeps his word to negotiate within the Constitution in the face of the “blackmail” of the sovereigntists..

In this scenario, which at this time is the most unlikely for PP and PSOE, given that in both formations the bets that there will be a Sánchez Executive win, the Galician leader would see the axis of his speech truncated.. Feijóo defended before the Lower House that he was resigning from being President of the Government because he was not willing “to pay the price they ask of him” from Junts. If Sánchez does not pay it either, the question that arises in the popular ranks is: “What is left for us?”.

The mantra that the socialist is an unscrupulous politician would be called into question, from the perspective of the popular ones, who assume that the socialist machinery would set in motion the boomerang effect to denounce that the PP has mobilized the streets and has based its disqualifications of Sánchez in a “lie”. Already in July, the PSOE worked on the slogan that the president's detractors had “fabricated” an image of him, which, in some cases, went so far as to describe him as “a psychopath.”. The other weak point they perceive in the party is the slogan of 'repealing sanchismo'. They explain that not only was it evident that it was insufficient to mobilize their electorate, but that, with the offer of State pacts to Sánchez by Feijóo, it has become “outdated.”.

Regarding the equation with Vox, the veterans go beyond blaming that it does not give the sum to the disaster of the extreme right. The key, according to former Rajoy ministers who compare the current situation to that experienced with Ciudadanos, is not everything that Abascal's men lower, but rather what the PP needs to raise. “If we want to reach Moncloa, we have to bite Vox much more,” reflect the aforementioned sources, who give as an example what has happened in Andalusia or in the Community of Madrid, where Juanma Moreno and Isabel Díaz Ayuso achieved better results than Feijóo in the generals.

In the territorial framework, a renewal in Catalonia and the Basque Country is a priority. With the current numbers in these communities, popular leaders assume that the PSOE will endure. For this change in trend it takes time. The conferences to replace Alejandro Fernández and Carlos Iturgáiz are pending. In the first case, resistance is expected from the leader of the Catalan PP.

With all these elements in the environment, the opinion is spreading in the PP that it is better to trust the future to a short term of Sánchez and rearm itself as an opposition against a Government that they foresee weakened by the slowdown of the economy, the demands for adjustments of Brussels and Puigdemont's dependency. The hackneyed expression that “elections are carried out by the devil” weighs heavily..