The PP invests Feijóo in the street, but warns that "everything is at stake" in Congress

Yesterday Alberto Núñez Feijóo had the mass bath that parliamentary arithmetic usurped on election night. On June 23, everything was prepared in Genoa to celebrate, but the impossibility of joining Vox to remove Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa overshadowed the victory.. The chants of “president, president!” to Isabel Díaz Ayuso on that balcony in Genoa, fears were resurrected in a broken PP. Two months later, the one acclaimed on the street has been Feijóo. The act against the foreseeable amnesty called by the popular people exceeded all expectations by bringing together more than 40,000 people, according to the Government Delegation; more than 60,000, according to the national direction. The planned capacity was 10,000. Previous reluctance among party officials turned into euphoria when testing the power of convocation. The majority were militants, the territorial organizations chartered nearly 200 buses, but also citizens dissatisfied with the transfers to the independentists..

The most shared analysis among the attending officials is that there is room to lead the social response to Sánchez. Among the barons – none were missing – the balance is “very positive” because “it has been a shot of adrenaline” in the face of Feijóo's predictably unsuccessful investiture that starts tomorrow in Congress. Beyond the message to the Spaniards, in the popular ranks it was necessary, according to the sources consulted, for the leader to convey that he is willing to “resist and fight.”. Those who know the Galician have experienced with concern the “slump” he suffered after the elections and attribute the “lumps” that the management has taken in the last month to that “state of confusion.”.

“Feijóo is back,” summarized yesterday a senior popular official. Although the noble floor of Genoa always denied that the call was an act of reaffirmation of leadership, the cadres interpreted it that way yesterday.. The challenge for Feijóo is to transfer the spirit of the Plaza de Felipe II to his intervention in the Lower House. There is maximum expectation in the party, because “everything is at stake,” warn popular sources, who claim that its president must set the foundations for his leadership not only internally, but also vis-à-vis the Spanish people.. There is no room for errors.

“Feijóo must win social leadership to consolidate it in the party,” explains a territorial leader who asks that the Galician make “a state speech” tomorrow beyond criticizing Sánchez and his agreements with the sovereigntists.. “We must show that there is a serious alternative that defends equality among Spaniards,” he insists.. The leader of the PP has been preparing his investiture speech all month. He has consulted with many from “outside and inside the PP”. He has asked his barons for papers on measures that have been implemented in the autonomies, but also to help him detect the “vulnerable points” after the agreements with Vox. In Genoa, they are aware that pacts with the extreme right will be the line of attack of Sánchez and his partners in Congress.

“In Congress, we cannot stay in the harangue against Sánchez,” claims another baron of those who yesterday gave up their hands in applauding the leader, although he recognized that the “best rally leader” continues to be former president José María Aznar. “In a Spain of free and equal citizens, the vote of one cannot be given more value compared to the vote of another.”. Law and Justice must be equal for everyone, starting with politicians, because if politicians are not equal before the law, it is an unspeakable cacicada in a State of law,” Feijóo stressed before a dedicated audience.. “There is no room for first-class and second-class citizens,” he added in a speech that served as a prelude to what will be face to face with Sánchez.. In his replies to the president, the Galician is expected to insist on the “lack of moral integrity”, which he already brandished yesterday before the masses, to mark the difference between the two..

“Even if it costs me the presidency of the Government, I will defend that Spain is a nation of free and equal citizens”. With this message, Feijóo advanced what will be the axis to justify why he goes to a failed investiture. The objective is to present a politician who prioritizes the “general interest over the individual” and who does not give in to sovereignist “blackmail” to sit in the Moncloa. A “statesman” who will once again offer great pacts and break down his economic and social proposals, management sources say.

Paradoxically, the PP places the starting point of its opposition work in the investiture with the horizon that Sánchez will not be able to exhaust the legislature due to tensions with his partners. The electoral repetition seems less and less feasible and even some in the PP consider that it is a double-edged sword: “If the result is repeated, we would have a serious problem.”