The call for elections has allowed Alberto Núñez Feijóo to send the message that he is ready to govern. But if the PP has learned something from the last appointments with the polls, it is that a declaration of intent is not enough. “We will not arrive without a plan”, they now proclaim in Genoa. That is why the president of the PP has commissioned the economist Pablo Vázquez with an “executive” document for the first 100 days of Government. This text -which is drawn up in parallel to the electoral program led by Cuca Gamarra- will synthesize Feijóo's unavoidable commitments for 2023, in the event that the PP not only wins the elections, but also can add the majority of support parliamentarians at an investiture.
Among those commitments for the first 100 days will be the recovery of the crime of sedition, a plan to “depoliticize” the main public bodies (the CIS, the CNI, the State Attorney General's Office or the INE, among others), an audit of spending public, a reform of the Judiciary so that judges directly elect 12 of the 20 members of the CGPJ, a plan to prevent politicians from holding judicial positions or the recovery of previous sentences for the crime of embezzlement.
And, also, a proposal to “thin” the Central State Administration, not only in the number of ministries (up to a maximum of 15), but also in the public companies attached to them.. “You have to make an analysis of which are maintained and which are not,” they explain in the leadership of the PP, where they want to cut taxes and bureaucratic “fat” at the same time.
The person in charge of preparing this document, Pablo Vázquez -former president of Renfe-, is the director of the new PP foundation, Reformismo21. In the proposals, economic profiles from the think tank help him, such as the former Minister of Employment Fátima Báñez, the former Minister of Economy Román Escolano, or the former IMF adviser José María Abad, according to what this newspaper has learned from sources familiar with the plan of the popular.
And, above all, Luis Garicano. In fact, this will be the first official commission from the former leader of Ciudadanos, who signed for the PP foundation in the middle of the 28-M campaign and who will now work hand in hand with Vázquez again, after coinciding at the head of the Fundación de Estudios and Analysis (Fedea). His signing was one of the great objectives of Feijóo, who has thus managed to place the economic guru of the oranges in his orbit just at a time when that brand plunges into definitive irrelevance.
In addition to the main economic bishops of Reformismo21, there are other “undisclosed assets” that are helping to prepare this 100-day “executive project”, according to the same sources.. In this list of anonymous “outsiders to the party” there are diplomats, consultants, former leaders of the moderate wing of socialism, members of the main unions and businessmen who are “linking their ideas, but not their name” to the PP, always according to the same sources.. They are relevant people who “cannot be in the foundation due to professional commitments or political motivations, but who do contribute proposals”, they point in the direction of Genoa.
In the document that has begun to be prepared there will already be “a series of axes of executive priority”. The economy and Justice are two of the fundamental. And the shielding of Spanish in the classrooms of Catalonia? “It is a political priority, but we do not know if it will be in the document”, they limit in Genoa, where they recall that too much progress has not yet been made in the drafting for the simple reason that the “commission” was produced on Friday afternoon. Although just yesterday Pablo Vázquez was at the national headquarters beginning to coordinate the work and contributions for this express government plan.
This document will work in a complementary way to the electoral program, with which it will share measures. In this way, the idea of a dual plan is reinforced. On the one hand, a technocratic and “shock” government document, and, on the other, a program with more ideological touches, and legislature. Of course, Gamarra's team will “add” the “contributions” of Reformismo21 to the global text with which the popular want to recover La Moncloa after five years.
The president of the CIS, José Félix Tezanos, defended yesterday the work of the organization, assuring that it points to “trends” and that the latest barometers “have adjusted quite a bit” to the final result of 28-M. This was maintained at the Madrid Book Fair, despite the fact that the CIS gave the PSOE and the PP the winner, 3.6 points less than those it achieved in the municipal ones.
BONUS BALL
One of the most sterile controversies facing 23-J is that of knowledge of English as a scale of preparation to be president. No one escapes that mastering this language is an important plus for the position, but also that if the PSOE places it as the last frontier of training, it will be leaving a reference like Felipe González in a bad place. He, like Feijóo, studied French at school. Now the Galician leader – who speaks his two native languages and understands himself in Portuguese – could answer like the Sevillian: “I will not know English, but I know Latin.”
If there is a gruesome, filmy and funny case, that is the kidnapping of the councilor Vanessa Romero in Maracena (Granada). Beyond the obvious political repercussions that it has had, taking the number two of the Andalusian PSOE ahead, a careful reading of the judge's order leaves pearls worthy of 'Torrente 6'. The kidnapper, Pedro Gómez, the mayoress's boyfriend, told the instructor “that he saw in a movie that by wrapping mobile phones in aluminum foil they lost their signal, and he did so.”. He then began to struggle to get Vanessa into the trunk.