The two green runners that can upset Emiliano García-Page

As Castilla-La Mancha does not have a regional identity, its elections operate with its own logic. More than some regional ones, they are the dispassionate elections of five different provinces. Or to be more precise: from 32 different districts. In this sum of things that is the Castilian-Manchego vote, there is one that has more and more weight: an emerging demographic phenomenon that revolves around two runners. The first, the Henares corridor, is a continuation of the northeast periphery of the capital that is entangled in the margins of the A-2 and that reaches the city of Guadalajara.. The second, the Corridor de la Sagra, is very similar, but flows southwest, through the A-42, to the city of Toledo..

The plumbers of the three parties in dispute privately admit that the possibility of the right joining 28-M crosses these urbanized languages that gravitate towards Madrid, housing part of what no longer fits in the capital. First, because only here can the framework established by the PP candidate, Paco Núñez, who has mounted his campaign in the only space he has left, penetrate deeply: trying to turn it into a plebiscite for Sánchez. Second, due to the sociological peculiarities of its inhabitants, who are already 15% of the total of the autonomous community. If things go well here, it would still be possible to add, even if Page does not cede ground in the rest of the autonomous community.

It is Vox, and not the PP, the party that has the best chance of unbalancing the balance in these towns against Emiliano García-Page. Although in the generals they vote differently, the two runners, especially the one from Toledo, already painted large green spots in 2019. They are working-class periphery, logistical services, recent flood (Guadalajara is the province that has grown the most in all of Spain in percentage terms since the eighties), immigration and pharaonic urban developments that (such as Seseña or Valdeluz) were left semi-abandoned by the financial crisis and ended up being squatted.

“These corridors also house a much younger population than the average in an aging region, a characteristic that makes their votes much more volatile and open to new political formations.. A few years ago, many of these votes went to Ciudadanos and Podemos.. Now I think they are going to be for Vox”, says a deputy of the Cortes. There are also security problems in some municipalities that face the highway. At the La Sagra pool, for example, the mayor has decided to dedicate part of the budget to hiring nightclub doormen. “Many inhabitants of the corridors work in Madrid, others come directly from Madrid, read the Madrid press and when they vote they think more of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Pedro Sánchez than of the candidates here.. Núñez does not have to convince them that they have to vote against Sánchez because they are already convinced from home ”, acknowledges a socialist adviser.

The one in Castilla-La Mancha is not only a Parliament of a conservative nature (it is housed in an old convent), but it was made jibarized by the reform carried out by María Dolores de Cospedal. There are only 33 deputies, the same as La Rioja, with a population eight times higher. In this scenario, Vox has practically secured two seats, one in Guadalajara and the other in Toledo.. But it is estimated that it could even double them, improving its expectations in these two provinces or adding another in Albacete, where there are seven seats at stake.. Its candidate, David Moreno, is a complete stranger to most of the population, but at Vox they count on the initials and the “national code vote” to be enough. If the above circumstance occurs, the PP and Vox could add up for the minimum.

Those who have followed the campaign these days assure that Page is not as calm as in other elections. Details such as the presence of businessmen related to the Board in events of Paco Núñez (including those of the meat giant Incarlopsa, one of the companies that has benefited most from his years in office) have him restless. “He has begun to attack Núñez in his speeches, something he had not done before because he did not consider him a rival.. And he has started to use more aggressive language. There is a lot of nervousness”, explains a political journalist with years of experience in Toledo.

Leaving aside the corridors and any surprises that may occur in the largest city in the region, in Albacete, in the rest of the territory the PSOE seems to have the situation under control, although it is waiting to see how the campaign evolves.. The pull of its mayors in cities such as Toledo or Talavera de la Reina (where Milagros Tolón and Tita García are expected to repeat with an absolute majority), added to Page's experience in the campaign (he held his first position as councilor at the age of 17) and their ability to prevent the flight of votes, make them confident that there will be no scare outside the green zone. They would be especially abundant in the south of La Mancha, in depressed and aging areas such as Puertollano or Ciudad Real, where the socialist fishing grounds seem to never end..

Page has been clever with some maneuvers that have allowed him to plug the leaks of votes before they occurred. In the provincial capitals and larger cities, it has managed to attract Citizen profiles to its ranks and assumes that it will capitalize at least a significant percentage of the orange shipwreck, the same that PP and Vox end up reaping entirely in other communities. In the driest regions, the story of water is winning with the transfer and the so-called Manchega pipeline. Meanwhile, he aborted the formation of candidacies from empty Spain by approving a law against pioneer depopulation. And in industrial estates and open fields, it has made the opening of companies a brand, attracting logistical, industrial and cultural investments at all costs (including environmental investment), as it did with the Puy Du Fou historical park (Toledo) or the Toro Verde multi-adventure park ( Basin). “He has promised much more than he is capable of achieving, but he has not stopped taking photos cutting inaugural ribbons”.

Outside of the aforementioned Vox corridors, the cultural war does not have much of an impact in the autonomous regions of Castilla-La Mancha either.. “Emiliano has systematically dedicated himself to marking distances with Sánchez on these issues. Sometimes forcing a little and others because he really thinks so. Remember that he positioned himself first with Madina and then with Susana. But then he has intensified that role. For example, he has opened a bullfighting channel on regional television, another hunting and fishing channel, he cheers on the Civil Guard whenever he can and he doesn't miss a procession or a bullfight… If you look closely, he gives all the interviews that they leave him to the center-right media, where he is also amused by his criticism of Sánchez. That way it is very difficult to catch him ”, explains a voice related to the opposition.

There are other frameworks that could harm him, but that the socialist advisers believe they also have control in the provinces furthest from Madrid. Housing is only a real problem in the capitals of Guadalajara and Toledo; On education there is not much political debate, because there is no fierce concerted-public competition from other regions, and Health, despite the disastrous figures of the covid in the region and the calamitous state of some hospitals and clinics, does not seem to be going either. to focus the campaign. “As bad as it is, it was worse with Cospedal, who paralyzed works such as those of the Toledo or Guadalajara hospitals, and it was Page who later resumed them,” justifies a socialist adviser.

Although of another order of magnitude, three more unknowns remain to be resolved. The first is whether the terrible anger of the agricultural sector against the Government can end up deflating Page in the towns. Although the agricultural image of Castilla-La Mancha does not correspond too much with reality (less than 6% of the population lives from the countryside), the ties with the towns continue to be very strong among the population. There are those who do not rule out that this anger, if it gets out of control, could end up causing a scare and putting an unexpected seat at risk.. The second of the small unknowns is to what extent abstention can weigh on a sector of the electorate (the one on the left of what Page represents) that has been basically orphaned with the implosion of Podemos and the clumsiness of its heirs.. Page's advisers hope to neutralize this ghost by whipping up fear of Vox, but they don't have it all with them.

And the third of the unknowns is whether Paco Núñez will finally manage to rise during this campaign. Aware that, if he does not do it, he does not have much more to do. It is true that he has spent years in a process of personal transformation, using image and clothing consultants, going on a diet and even taking care of his diction with the help of speech therapists.. What happened a few years ago has not happened for a long time, when the software that transcribes speeches in Las Cortes constantly spit out the word Libyan. “What was Núñez doing talking about Libya? Until we understood that what the machine was picking up was ‘li vi a deci una cosa’, pronounced like that, with a very Manchego accent,” they recall at the convent of San Gil.