The PP candidate for the Junta de Extremadura, María Guardiola, maintains her pulse with Vox although she needs Santiago Abascal's party to be the first woman president of Extremadura. In a public appearance this morning at the party headquarters, she has assured that the candidate of the Abascal formation in this autonomous community, Ángel Pelayo Gordillo (former PP councilor in Mérida), has not yet called her after the elections to congratulate her. Even so, he has assured that he will sit down with him “as with the rest of the parties” over the next few days, although he has also stressed that his intention in the first place to do so with Guillermo Fernández Vara, the acting president of the Board, who yesterday took a step back in his intention to leave politics and announced that he will also present his candidacy for the Board. “I will try to convince him that the best thing for Extremadura is his abstention,” Guardiola insisted, reaffirming that Vara's change responds to a “last service to Sanchismo, putting the interests of Extremadura first, although he knows that his candidacy cannot prosper because it doesn't have support, but it uses the institutions for it”.
Guardiola has confirmed that he will appear for the investiture to form a government, as well as that he keeps intact his intention to govern alone, without having to give input to Vox, a party to which he transfers all responsibility for the future options of the socialist Guillermo Fernández Vara. The president of the Extremaduran PP has confirmed that her party will not allow Vara to govern under any circumstances “because his time has ended, as the people of Extremadura have said and he himself said on election night.”
It should be remembered that the PP and PSOE tied for seats on 28-M, with 28 deputies each, although it was the Socialists who counted the greatest number of ballots at the polls. Vox, with five deputies, is the key to reaching an absolute majority in the Extremadura Parliament, which stands at 33, while United for Extremadura obtained three parliamentarians.
“They will have to ask Vox if they are going to allow this land to continue to be governed by the PSOE, but that will no longer be my responsibility or the responsibility of my party. And we have made it very clear: I am not going to support an investiture of Mr. Fernández Vara. I'm not going to do it,” he said.
Guardiola confirmed that he will speak with all the political parties “to form that new government, that government of change that they have asked us for” and in this sense he stressed that “I am willing to speak with Vox,” Guardiola explains, although he has insisted on several occasions on who wants “a lone government”. For this reason, he announced that he will sit down with Ángel Pelayo Gordillo and show him the electoral program of the PP, “what we have done listening to the people of Extremadura” while Vox will have to tell him “what it does not share, or what it contributes”. And he specified: “I have my hands free, I have had them from the beginning, what I don't know is if Mr. Pelayo has them, I don't know if Abascal leaves him a free hand” to negotiate.
No reduction in social rights
In this sense, she did make it clear that in the government that she presides there will not be a single modification or reduction of social rights and of the most disadvantaged people or groups: “That with me will never be in question.”
In any case, he has assured that he does not contemplate “Vara ruling this land for four more years, with the vote of the PP we are not going to allow it” so “you will have to ask Vox if they are going to allow it”. Asked if he would agree to give councils to the formation of Abascal to form the government, Guardiola has indicated: “I am not thinking of distributing posts or charges, what you have to think about is the program to apply as soon as possible to get our land out of the state where he is, at the bottom of all the rankings”, so he wished “that the new government be formed as soon as possible”.
Throughout his speech, Guardiola was especially critical of Fernández Vara, whom he asked “out of respect for Extremadura and also for himself” to take a step “to the side” because the polls have called for “change”. In this sense, he has pointed out that he must “assume the disaster as soon as possible” and has made him ugly that “even when people ask for change, he prefers to hold on to his chair and struggle.”
In this way, he has reminded him of his swerve in less than 48 hours after announcing his departure from politics to try to govern at any cost: “Two days have been enough for him to change his mind and start campaigning for Pedro Sánchez”. In this sense, he considers that the socialist leader from Extremadura clings to presenting himself for a “failed” inauguration, for which he has asked himself that “if he does not have support, what is he trying to do?”, for which he insisted that he will try convince Fernández Vara: “I do not refuse to let him come to his senses”.