Toledo and Valladolid, spearhead of the municipal alliance of the PP and Vox: "It is the beginning of an exciting stage"

The change that the right longs for at the national level is already a reality at the local level and it is possible that it will soon be so at the regional level. The Popular Party has increased its municipal domain and predicts that the triumph of 28-M will be the prelude to a national victory that will allow Alberto Núñez Feijóo to reach La Moncloa. The unknown today lies in how much the PP will need Vox for this, given the formula that both parties have been forced to activate in order to beat the left in not a few or small municipalities.

Toledo and Valladolid are emblems of this new clamp between the PP and Vox in large cities. On both points the PSOE was the first force but the sum of the right, materialized in pacts forged in recent days and negotiations against the clock, gives the mayor's office to the PP with the support of Vox from within the consistory. In Toledo (86,906 inhabitants), Carlos Velázquez will team up with the national deputy of Vox Inés Cañizares to unseat the PSOE after 16 years of left-wing mayoralties. The pike is symbolic for having been the political cradle of Emiliano García-Page, who was mayor of the capital from 2007 to 2015 and became the leader of the Castilian-Manchego socialists as city councilor.

The PP, despite not winning autonomy on March 28, has dyed important cities in the region blue through the mechanism of the pact with Vox. Guadalajara (89,169 inhabitants), Ciudad Real (74,850 inhabitants) or Talavera de la Reina (83,247 inhabitants) are some examples, but in Genoa the case of Puertollano (47,881 inhabitants) is especially liked, where the PP will try to govern alone -since , with ten seats, needs one more for an absolute majority – and put an end to an entire socialist bastion after 44 years of left-wing mayors. The regional leader of the popular, Paco Núñez, went there this Saturday to celebrate the new local situation of the right in Castilla-La Mancha.

“It is the beginning of an exciting stage,” said Velázquez, the new councilor of Toledo, who won nine councilors in the May 28 elections after being sworn in.. Added to the four that Vox obtained, the right can form a local government and overtake Milagros Tolón's PSOE, which won eleven seats, insufficient to repeat the mandate.

The new councilor from Toledo thanked Vox for its “will” to form agreements, defined his new government as “without labels” and called for forging a “fruitful, cordial and cooperative” legislature within the new mayor's office, but warned that the objective of the City Council that he already directs is to “solve problems and not create them”, nor “divide the citizens”, just at a time when the PP and Vox have shown their first differences at the national level after the pact in the Valencian Community and the statements of those from Abascal denying the existence of gender violence. “It is not a day to talk about violence,” said Cañizares in this regard to remove the issue.

The Vox candidate in the region's capital did not specify what position she will assume in the new local team and praised the “ease” with which both parties have agreed. In the same way, he assured that the only “red line” that has been assessed is the dismantling of socialist policies that have so harmed autonomy.

The municipal power of the PP in Castilla-La Mancha becomes incontestable from now on: it governs in six of the seven most populated cities -only Cuenca is missing- in the region, in four of them with the support of Vox, Toledo being the jewel of the crown for both parties.

Valladolid: management without “precipitation”

257 kilometers from there, the situation was different but the result was the same. Valladolid (295,639 inhabitants) was another strong point for the PSOE, especially for Pedro Sánchez, since the until now mayor, Óscar Puente -who will go on the lists to Congress on 23-J- is one of the leaders closest to the president. Despite winning by a few hundred votes, the PP and Vox agreed on the horn to stop a new socialist legislature in the municipal institution.

Jesús Julio Carnero is the new mayor of Valladolid and Irene Carvajal, Vox candidate, will be first deputy mayor. Those of Santiago Abascal will get three of the ten councillorships, although which ones will not be specified until next week.

During his speech, Carnero defended the triumph of democracy, manifested in the change of cycle in Valladolid and in the birth of the new coalition between the PP and Vox. In addition, he called on his team not to “rush” and make decisions and make announcements “in due time.”

Burgos (174,051 inhabitants) is the other major Castilian-Leonese capital in which, despite the socialist triumph, this alliance has worked to raise a right-wing mayor's office. There, the PP delivers to Vox the portfolios of Citizen Security, Employment, Industry and Consumption, as well as Culture and Education.

Unlike in the case of Toledo, the provincial capitals of Castilla y León -the PP also won in Segovia and revalidated in Salamanca- are in tune with the change in cycle that brought about the pact between the PP of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco -who accompanied Carnero in the inauguration and celebrated the return of the PP to Valladolid after eight years- and Vox, with Juan García-Gallardo, in February 2022 to govern the Board. That was the first regional agreement between the two formations, which has served Vox above all as a reference when negotiating other possible regional executives after 28-M. For the moment, these negotiations have only resulted in a governance pact in the Valencian Community that will allow the popular Carlos Mazón to be the next president of the Generalitat, with Vicente Barrera, from Vox, as vice president.

The replica of these pacts covers other important provincial capitals and large cities. The PP will govern with Vox, for example, in Castellón de la Plana (171,589 inhabitants) and also in Elche (235,580 inhabitants), as well as in Alcalá de Henares (195,570 inhabitants), Móstoles (207,095 inhabitants) and Torrent (81,245 inhabitants).

This right-wing equation writes a new page in the political history of our country. Until now, the left had led the way in terms of local and regional pacts since 2015. Now, the weakening of the progressive formations and the entry of Vox in practically all the regional parliaments and many consistories draws a map of the country completely different from that of a few weeks ago: of the 966 municipalities in which those of Santiago Abascal have achieved representation, They will enter 140 town halls, the vast majority at the hands of the popular ones. In addition, they accumulate 26 absolute majorities and will be able to govern in another hundred locations thanks to pacts with other forces.