The 'kiss' of Forum to Vox in Gijón shakes Asturias
When Carmen Moriyón signed with Vox the conditions of her essential support to become mayor of Gijón, she was well aware that the agreement would have consequences.. His campaign purposes were recent. “We are not going to support ourselves to govern in parties that represent ideological extremes,” he stated on several occasions.. Later, the people of Gijón voted, and gave the three parties of the right a majority that they had never had in the most populous city of Asturias. The Forum and the PP did not take long to reach a joint program, but they still lacked a vote that the regionalists sought in Vox. With a few hours to go before the plenary session to establish the City Council, the pact was announced with important concessions to the minority party in terms of equality, secularism and language policy, as well as a position on the Governing Board, the Department of Celebrations and the management of Divertia, organizer of the Film Festival.
The next day, Carmen Moriyón took the baton for the third time with a worried gesture. “The context changes and my speech has to change, and that took away many hours of sleep,” he later admitted in an interview with Cadena Ser.. «Can my word be above the will of 70,000 people from Gijón who ask for a historic change? Frankly, no,” he argued.
The deluge of criticism from the opposition could be taken for granted. But just a few hours after becoming mayor, Carmen Moriyón, who is also president of Foro Asturias, had to accept the resignation of her number three, the vice-secretary for Strategy and founder of the José Suárez Arias-Cachero party, Felechosa, for the “infamous pact” of Gijón, an agreement that in his opinion “violates the program, principles and spirit of the Forum” and “insults the democratic history of the city of Xixón”. “I will not be an accomplice to those who want to be our executioners,” he said in his goodbye on Twitter. He was followed by Inaciu Iglesias, member of the Board of Directors – “it is incompatible with my appreciation for the dignity and equality of people, the cleanliness of politics and the defense of what is Asturian” -, and Carlos Suárez, candidate in Oviedo, who he resigned as a militant.
And meanwhile, all eyes are on Adrián Pumares, general secretary of Foro, the only representative of the party in the General Meeting of the Principality after May 28 and victim of the campaign that Vox launched against him when his vote was decisive to approve the official status from Asturian. For three days he was silent and limited himself to retweeting a publication by Felechosa in which he quoted the work Against Fascism by Umberto Eco, which fueled a possible resignation. Finally, he summoned the press to give his position on the pact. “It bothers me for reasons of a political and personal nature,” he declared, but ruled out that it will influence his work in the regional parliament because “it is strictly municipal.”. He also revealed that in the plenary session of the president's election he will not vote for the PP candidate, Diego Canga, and that he plans to abstain. “I extend my hand to the Government of Adrián Barbón,” he proclaimed.
What the socialist leader will do, who in his first legislature displayed a “variable geometry” by supporting himself both with the left and with Foro or Ciudadanos, is still unknown.. He has 19 of the 45 seats in the Chamber and has already secured the support of the three IU deputies for his investiture, which makes the election of the PP candidate unfeasible, who could only add 21 supports if he obtains the support of the four Vox representatives. But Barbón would stay one seat away from the absolute majority, which he could obtain with the support of Podemos -which, like the IU, claims to be part of the Executive- or the Forum. The elected deputy of the purple, Cova Tomé, has already demanded that the president and candidate for re-election summon her to negotiate and clear “immediately if she will rely on the secretary of the party that governs with Vox or instead she will seek the agreement of the forces of the left for a stable government». He also urged IU this week to respond if he is going to “turn his back on his natural partners” with whom they share lists in Sumar.
On Monday the Table is constituted, where the PSOE gives IU one of its positions to ensure a presidency that will have Juan Cofiño, Barbón's right hand, as head. Vox will not enter and the role of Foro and Podemos, which will coexist in the Mixed Group, remains to be seen in the legislature.
The “harassment” of Vox that neither the Forum nor the PSOE forget
The official status of the Asturian was never as close to being a reality as in 2021, when the Forum put a price on his decisive vote to achieve the necessary reinforced majority. This provision cost its spokesman, Adrián Pumares, to be the victim of a Vox campaign in which he appeared with his mouth crossed out on some posters or emulating the kiss between Leonid Brézhnev and Erich Honecker with Adrián Barbón, a “harassment” that neither Forum nor PSOE forget.
Carmen Moriyón, from Foro Asturias, is the only non-socialist mayor that Gijón has had since 1979. After departing from municipal politics in the last legislature, he has begun his third term thanks to the support of PP and Vox, who enter the Government of the most populous city in Asturias for the first time.
In 2015 he governed by the division of the left. «When we reached specific agreements with Podemos, it seemed that Gijón was going to lead communism in the world. Now it seems that due to a specific agreement with Vox we are going to return to the last century, “he ironized at Cope.