The new mayors of Aragon advance an investiture of Azcón without the need for Vox

There were few Aragonese town halls in which surprises were expected when it came to electing mayors. But they have been thermometers of the negotiations to elect the president of Aragon as of next Friday, June 23, when the Table of the Cortes is constituted. And everything indicates that Jorge Azcón, who obtained 28 of the 64 deputies in parliament, can achieve his objective of avoiding Vox's votes in the investiture and forming a monocolor government, even though he has admitted those votes to ensure mayors of relevant populations.

It has not been necessary in the three capitals, where the three mayors took possession of their command rods with their own and exclusive PP votes, even without having an absolute majority in Zaragoza and Huesca. They have needed them to govern towns like Jaca, Utebo, Cuarte or María de Huerva.

Meanwhile, mayors of emblematic places that were from the PSOE and needed the support of minorities to continue in power have seen how the ties that united them were undone and no new ones were tied. Especially significant has been the case of Alcañiz, where the socialist Ignacio Urquizu lost the mayoralty, which the PP won thanks to adding two separate votes from PAR and Vox and the abstention of Teruel Exists. Urquizu, who had already been removed days before from the lists to Congress from the Federal Executive, will continue in the town as leader of the opposition and will take possession of his act of regional deputy. After the forced relief, he regretted the decisions of the PAR and Teruel Existe on the networks.

One of the great disappointments for the Aragonese progressive electorate is being @TeruelExiste_ They are going to opt for abstention, allowing the PP to govern without giving up VOX. This will happen tomorrow in Alcañiz… Alternative majorities could be built and they have given it up

– Ignacio Urquizu (@iurquizu) June 16, 2023

The same as the general secretary of the PSOE Aragón, Javier Lambán, who even on the eve of the municipal investiture plenary sessions came to offer Teruel.. In that offer, he called on the Aragonese to respond to the PSOE proposal, because “it offers dignity”, compared to what the PP could propose, and to maintain the alliance locked in the Quadripartite.

The role of the RAP

But the steps taken up to now by the PAR do not go in that direction and do go in that of supporting the PP, facilitating the investiture of Azcón. The vote of Alberto Izquierdo, the only regional deputy of the Aragonese, is the one that would give the simple majority for the investiture, since the support announced by Aragón/Teruel Existe is that of abstention, without Vox in the equation. The PAR also seeks to obtain a vice-presidency of that disputed Provincial Council, the position held by the same Left under the command of the PSOE and which has been key for the PAR to present 214 municipal candidacies in the third Aragonese province, out of the 354 in the Community. This implantation and with its people-to-people votes, has been key to its survival in the main institutions.

Now, with the electoral wind in favor of the PP, in a party that has always made the most of its results -from the greatest of yesteryear to the meager ones present-, everything indicates that their option is going to be to vote for them. They understand that it can allow them to assume an effective public management quota, which they do not see easy from a provincial council facing the government of the community.

In the case of Aragón/Teruel Existe, the proposals of the Aragonese PSOE have been received with great coldness. To the offer of the presidency of the Diputación de Teruel, Tomás Guitarte already responded that they were proposing impossible things because they were in the hands of third parties. In any case, in Aragón/Teruel Existe they do not see it as politically appropriate to preside over a corporation of 25 deputies having four minutes. They do aspire to the vice presidency and, above all, as they have repeated in recent weeks, compliance with agreements on renewables, depopulation or health, which they have put on the table.

Despite the PSOE's speech that the votes of the new formation come from its ideological spectrum and having supported the investiture of Sánchez four years ago, Aragón / Teruel Existe reiterate that they are on the issues that carry their program, beyond not accepting the intervention of Vox, and not to party assumptions.

The Table of the Courts

Now the challenge is in the capacity of the PP to square everything, with a following temperature taking in the constitution of the Table of the Cortes. By this Friday, the round of talks that Azcón has held with all the groups will have concluded and it will be necessary to see what positions the possible allies occupy.

The interest in the evolution of the pacts in Aragon is maximum, as shown by the fact that the national leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, of the 8,000 municipalities in Spain, chose the inauguration of the mayoress of the small town of Celadas in Teruel. That presence had many readings. Also, that of betting because the pacts in Aragon are different from those of the Valencian Community and reflect the centrist profile that it seeks for July 23. The same as what happened in Barcelona and the Basque Country.

Azcón himself is also in it, with his own denominator: without flaunting his resignation from Vox -the legislature is very long-, start the new era of Aragonese politics with a single and indisputable color, blue. Their own voice will be that of the popular leader.