Ayuso shields his Health Minister from possible complaints for his management of the pandemic

Despite sounding insistently for weeks as a PP candidate in Pozuelo de Alarcón, the Health Minister of the Community of Madrid will finally be appointed senator by regional designation after confirming that Paloma Tejero will be the popular candidate for the aforementioned Madrid municipality.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
14 March 2023 Tuesday 01:45
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Ayuso shields his Health Minister from possible complaints for his management of the pandemic

Despite sounding insistently for weeks as a PP candidate in Pozuelo de Alarcón, the Health Minister of the Community of Madrid will finally be appointed senator by regional designation after confirming that Paloma Tejero will be the popular candidate for the aforementioned Madrid municipality.

The change of registration of Enrique Ruiz Escudero -current president of the party in Pozuelo- guarantees him an appraisal that he would lack in municipal politics and that, according to parliamentary sources, "shields" him against possible judicial complaints that could derive from the political controversy health management developed by the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso during the pandemic.

Pending his appointment, Escudero will remain in the Government until the end of the legislature. And he does so in a context of labor unrest in the Madrid Health Department, accentuated by the two major mobilizations in recent months that have brought hundreds of thousands of Madrid residents onto the streets.

Since the end of 2022, Madrid has been suffering from an indefinitely active fight from nearly 5,000 doctors and pediatricians in Primary Care, several paros in Hospital Care and widespread protests in the health sector due to the model of extra-hospital care.

With the Community of Madrid as the region that registered the highest excess mortality in these years related to Covid-19 -37.8% more than the average number of deaths between 2015 and 2019-, largely due to the crisis of nursing homes, the Madrid head of management of the pandemic has acknowledged on many occasions that it was a "very tough" stage.

The president of the Community and the PP of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has finished this Monday configuring the list of all the party's municipal candidates for the elections on May 28, with the aim of starting "a great comeback". in 95 municipalities where they do not govern.

The Madrid leader herself has communicated this at a press conference at the party headquarters, which has been marked by the announcement that the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, will not finally be the candidate for Pozuelo de Alarcón but will leave the Government regional to go on the lists and be appointed regional senator.

Ayuso, accompanied by the general secretary of the PP of Madrid, Alfonso Serrano, has reeled off the names of the 93 municipalities that have yet to be communicated in which it has not included, despite speculation, any advisor to its Executive. The future of these will be decided when she sets up her electoral list and after the elections, according to what she has revealed.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us. I remind you that, currently, we are in opposition in 95 municipalities. We have eleven weeks ahead of us. We are obliged to a great comeback. The political situation in Spain and in Madrid also asks us to be more demanding with our teams and the project that we present to the people of Madrid", remarked the leader of the popular Madrid supporters.