The PP is already aiming for its next objective: "Reunify the center-right" with one million votes from Vox
“It shows that you can lose the vote, but win the debate”. This phrase from Cuca Gamarra, general secretary of the PP, summarizes the feelings of the leadership of her party after the attempted investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, which was unsuccessful (172 votes in favor, 177 against and one void), but which his co-religionists left an unbeatable taste in their mouths. The popular ones believe that in the three days of this debate a suggestive project has been made visible for all those who are to the right of Pedro Sánchez. And they consider that they have “widened” the electoral space of the PP, so now they are going to launch themselves into the “reunification” of the center-right, according to various leaders consulted by this newspaper.
“He has consolidated a social leadership that will allow him to win more votes outside Congress” to “reunify the electorate” of the right “in two years,” says one of the main visible faces of the PP.. That is if elections are not held before. In Genoa they say that, after the “unbeatable success” for Feijóo of his interventions in the investiture, the PP is in a position to give a huge bite to the Vox electorate. Either point-blank, with a hypothetical repetition of the elections in January, or in the medium term, when the legislature is exhausted, if Sánchez manages to be installed.
The latter is the scenario with which they work in the PP today, since they estimate that “it will be much more difficult for Sánchez to go to elections after this”, as a veteran deputy pointed out as she left Congress.. It is something that the national leadership shares: “A repeat election would benefit us a lot.”
The power of the dwarf
Furthermore, no one in the front row of the popular party supports Esperanza Aguirre's idea that Feijóo should give some abstentions to Sánchez so that he can carry out his investiture without giving in to the maximum demands of the independentistas.. or to portray yourself. No, in the “active” PP – they clarify in Genoa with vitriolic tint – no one contemplates that Feijóo helps to form an Executive that he does not preside over.
With this determination, the PP's calculations are clear: in the next election there will be up to one million Vox votes at stake, which are likely to end up “returning” to the popular ranks.. That is, a third of the three million ballots obtained by the formation led by Santiago Abascal. «Vox has been left out of the game. “Many people would vote for us now,” says a senior official in the PP leadership, who highlights that this newspaper's survey on the investiture speech already pointed in that direction: it convinced almost 90% of Vox voters.
Furthermore, the CIS already provided conclusive data: 13% of Vox voters would have changed their vote if they had known what the results of 23-J were going to be.. “In addition, Vox has not had the best debate, precisely, it has not been good for them,” another PP leader adds privately.
One million, in the medium term. That is the electoral group that the PP leader wants to fish on the starboard side, but his team believes that there are another 400,000 votes to his left that they have already begun to seduce: “Feijóo has harvested the 400,000 social democrats that we were missing” on the 23rd. J.
Every family'
The analysis, both in Genoa and in the baronies and in the Parliamentary Group, is unequivocally positive. They all agree that if his speeches in this triple investiture session have been of any use to the candidate, it has been to establish an opposition project, contrary to his own career, but with “his homework done” to make the leap towards La Moncloa. in the future. In other words, he has sown to reap “now or soon”, as Feijóo himself often repeats to encourage himself.
The popular ones consider that their president has shielded his leadership for three reasons. The first, because he has managed to seamlessly bring together all the sensitivities of the party around his speech: liberals, moderates, conservatives, Marianistas, Aznaristas, Sorayistas, loose verses…. And this is the first time that has happened since the years of the Aznar Government: “The entire party has been reflected and satisfied”. The second, because he has effectively appealed to the socialist electorate that is suspicious of the amnesty and to the Vox sympathizers who did not trust him due to lack of forcefulness.. And the third, because it has clearly prevailed – always according to the PP version – in the individual duels with the PNV, with Bildu and with Junts, with all its symbolism in tow.
The number two of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, assured this newspaper that “it has been a clearly useful and profitable debate for the Spanish people: they have seen the president that Feijóo is going to be.”. “Now or soon, but it will be,” she also repeats the slogan.
«The consolidation of a very clear leadership has been seen. There is unanimity in the center and on the right that the only alternative government has been consolidated and in a very clear way. Above all, it is the only possible way to maintain the validity of the constitutional pact of '78 as understood by the Popular Party.. «Not only for the center-right, he adds. Many PSOE voters have seen a leader in Feijóo,” emphasizes the general secretary of the most voted party.
Previously, in his speech before the Lower House to close the investiture journey, Gamarra emphasized the clear aspect of oratorical seduction of this parliamentary session. «Feijoo, the PP and Spanish society have won because they have been offered a horizon for the future». “Feijóo offers a suggestive project of life together,” he explained, after highlighting that this is “a reason for hope because an optimistic Spain emerges, that of mutual affection; a majority reality in the face of the secessionist minority.
And he added an appeal to reduce the environmental tension of the Congress of Deputies and politics, in general, prioritizing the “political height from respect, principles and differences” over the blows of effect that in his opinion the PSOE gives: «Nothing is built from mud, only political life gets worse. We experienced that on Tuesday with Óscar Puente's speech and on Thursday at the Madrid City Council, the difference is that Juan Lobato sent him home and Sánchez has allowed Puente to once again be the spokesperson for the PSOE.