The discovery of Alberto Núñez Feijóo as a parliamentarian brings with it the novelty of relations between the Popular Party and Vox: now, their leaders smile with the placidity of cordial enemies who await the day when they can stab each other. But without stopping smiling. In the debate in which Pedro Sánchez decided to send one of his gladiators most in need of favor to the pit, lacking in scruples, therefore, the tone and manner of the leader of the Popular Party favored the contrast in his favor..

Feijóo's discovery as a parliamentarian, in italics, is due to the fact that it was the first time that the president of the PP sat in the Congress of Deputies and, furthermore, he did so with the stripes of a candidate for the presidency of the Government, which allowed him to measure himself as a speaker against all his opponents in the chamber. We knew him, obviously, in rallies, interviews, television debates and even in the Senate appearances, in front of Pedro Sánchez, but, except for the Galicians, Núñez Feijóo premiered his oratory, biting and stinging, for the rest of the Spaniards.. And for the other spokespersons of Congress, who did not know of him as a speaker either.

The first consequence of the Feijóo style in the Congress of Deputies is what, for the moment, seems like a new model of relations between the Popular Party and Vox. The relations between these two parties have always been burdened by two unavoidable cracks in the five years of institutional coexistence that have been completed, counting from the first time that those from Vox occupied seats in the Parliament of Andalusia after the December 2018 elections.. The first crack is political contempt and the second is the social rejection that the extreme right arouses, per se, by its mere existence, regardless of the events that occur.. So let's go in parts. The first, political contempt, is at the very origin of the appearance of Vox which, as is well known by its founders, is a split from the Popular Party..

The origin of the disagreement is in 2012, when a former leader of the Catalan PP, Aleix Vidal Quadras, promoted a platform, Reconversión.es, to urge the Government (then chaired by Mariano Rajoy) to modify the territorial model.. The initiative is joined by some well-known people such as José Antonio Ortega Lara, ETA's cruelest kidnapper, and others less relevant, such as Santiago Abascal.. The platform does not gather even thirty thousand signatures, so it will have to wait a few years, until Abascal gets the definitive motto right: “the PP is the cowardly right wing.”. It is not possible to insist on this qualification of contempt of this crack of Vox towards the Popular Party. Above all, because it still remains, latent, every time one of its leaders closest to the center takes center stage in the Popular Party, even bordering on social democracy.. Instantly, they will receive attacks from leaders and spokespersons who will accuse them of being “vulgar beings”, “equidistant” and “self-conscious”.. Mariano Rajoy was and everyone who resembles him continues to be.. No need to mention names. The fact is that the contempt remains, although the fundamental nuance of this moment is that it does not entail the frontal tension and rejection of other times.. An example of the frustrated investiture debate that serves as a reference. It was when Abascal asked Feijóo to get rid of centrism, both here and in Europe: “The same thing happens to the European PP, undecided between continuing to approach the socialists or us,” he said in reference to the group led by the Italian Giorgia. Meloni. And he added: “They must recover their roots and let go of the socialists.”.

Feijóo ignores this type of insinuations, he does not even enter the debate, because the only thing that seems to rebel him is the consequences that the social rejection raised by Vox has for the aspirations of the Popular Party, which is the second crack that separates them, as stated. I said before. The president of the PP is of the opinion that one of the causes of the unsatisfactory result of the last general elections is, precisely, the alert that is generated in society every time some extreme right leader, somewhere in Spain, rampages against women, against immigrants or against homosexuals. The discourse of fear of the right that the PSOE, and the entire left, always promotes, is activated immediately and that is what happened in the elections, amplified by the widespread pacts in city councils and autonomous communities.. Feijóo thinks, and this is what he said in the debate, that Vox's serious problem is that, with each outburst, it ends up benefiting the PSOE. If we add to that the fact that the division of the center-right takes away seats, the consequence is the result of these elections. For Feijóo, there are no more explanations: without these conditions, the PP would have won “190 seats” in the elections. “Who told you that, the same polling house that predicted an absolute majority on July 23?” Abascal replied ironically.. “No, that's what the D'Hont Law says,” Feijóo replied..

The leader of Vox is right that it cannot be stated, far from it, that the PP would have obtained 190 seats, if only one party existed, as it did years ago.. It cannot be said, among other things, because it is very likely that two out of every three Vox voters have no intention of ever voting for the Popular Party.. Therefore, the hypothesis can never be developed by adding electorates, without further ado.. On the contrary, what is incontestable is that Vox arouses social rejection that does not occur with any other political force.. And it is not about getting involved in debates about how fair or unfair it may seem to us that the same thing does not happen with far-left political forces… Everyone will have an explanation, but the point is that this fact occurs. Spanish society of this time is intolerant of these extreme right-wing speeches and, in each episode, an uncontrollable rash occurs.. Therefore, the conclusion we can reach is that, certainly, this phase of détente, of cordial enmity, is very positive for the parties of the right, but none of this will prevent many of the possible achievements from being lost due to the sink of that second crack, that of the social rejection that the mere concept of the extreme right entails.