The president of the PP will take a step back. It is the time of Pedro Sánchez, they say in the PP, when they are asked what now?, after the definitive defeat of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in his intention to be sworn in as president of the government. Sources consulted from the party consider that now the leadership and initiative must be left to the socialist candidate, as soon as the King, on Tuesday, appoints him, if he does so.
But in the meantime, sources from the popular leadership understand that their president must prepare the party to oppose, now or when Sánchez is inaugurated, if his negotiations prosper and ERC and Junts give him their support. There are those in the party who think that until the leader of the PSOE is inaugurated, nothing should be taken for granted, and Feijóo should not oppose, because it is equivalent to ratifying ahead of time that Sánchez will have the support to be president. And it is not safe, they argue, since the shadow of the electoral repetition still hangs over Spanish politics.
Others consider that Feijóo should now go into “opposition mode”, even before there is an investiture, to grease the entire machinery for a term that they predict will be short. The difference between a PP government and a PSOE government must be conveyed to citizens from the first moment, both in the way their respective leaders do politics, and in substance. A president “dedicated to paying for the support of the independentists”, they say, or one whose main concern is “the problems of the Spanish people”, especially from an economic point of view: inflation, rising mortgage prices, taxes...
To address this new stage, the majority of popular leaders believe that organic changes must be made in the leadership, either by replacement or expansion. We must reinforce a direction that has served for this first stage, but now has to play with a different situation. When those changes are addressed, everyone looks to Cuca Gamarra. She is general secretary and spokesperson for the group in Congress. Feijóo decided after the elections not to change the leadership of the groups in both chambers until he knew if he would be president or if he would have to be the opposition.
When he became president of the PP, in the spring of 2022, Feijóo decided that Gamarra, in addition to his number two in the party, was the highest authority in Congress, since he was not a deputy, although he found accommodation in the Senate, from where he questioned the President of the Government once a month. In Congress, it was logical, the PP emphasizes, that the number two was also the spokesperson, to give maximum authority to parliamentary interventions. But Feijóo is already in Congress and it may be convenient that the two positions held by Gamarra do not overlap.
Within this opposition that Feijóo will prepare, the PP will focus on the next electoral calls: the Basque and Galician elections in the spring of next year, the European ones in June, and the Catalan ones, which take place at the beginning of 2025, but which in party do not rule out that they are before.
They are all important for the PP. The Galician ones, because they will be the first since Feijóo left Galicia and it will be seen if Alfonso Rueda maintains the absolute majority that his predecessor obtained. In the Basque Country, the interest is in knowing if the PNV retains the lehendakaritza and if the PP can play a substantial role in making that happen. And in the European Parliament, revalidate the first position.
But the PP looks with great interest at Catalonia after the results in the municipal and general elections. They will try to improve their numbers by fishing in fishing grounds like the moderates of Junts, who miss the Convergència i Unió of yesteryear, economically, but also with regard to self-determination. “We are going for the Junts vote, not just for the PSC and Ciudadanos,” the popular ones emphasize.
