"Nobody talks about punching." The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, wanted to clarify this morning the interpretation that has been made of his statements on Wednesday in Murcia, when he asked for an effort from the postal workers, apart from their judges, so that all the votes cast have asked to issue by mail, reach their recipients, despite the lack of personnel.
Specifically, the leader of the PP said in Murcia: "I ask the postmen in Spain with whom I have worked, to work to the maximum, morning, noon and night, and even if they do not have enough effort, to know that they are guarding something sacred, which is your vote. I ask you, regardless of your bosses, to distribute all the votes before the deadline expires. I ask all the staff at Correos, because it is essential, and I promise that if they do not get paid overtime, I will pay you overtime, in the first Council of Ministers, for doing your duty".
These statements gave rise to numerous criticisms of the president of the PP for considering that he was questioning the cleanliness of the vote-by-mail operation, by the Government or by the authorities that manage the Post Office, dependent on the Government, which led to the company issued a note in which it assured that the necessary reinforcements had been hired, and the item to pay for the overtime work had already been consigned.
This Thursday, in an interview on EsRadio, with Federico Jiménez Losantos, he was blunt: "nobody talks about pucherazo". What he is talking about is "the complaints from the UGT and CC.OO, who know what they are talking about" and who assure that not enough personnel have been hired to be able to provide an outlet for the two and a half million Spanish citizens who had requested, until yesterday, the vote by mail. To these complaints from the unions, Alberto Núñez Feijóo adds the comments of many citizens who approach him to tell him that he has not yet received the envelope with the ballots to be able to vote, and he even cited the case of two members of his team who asked for the vote in June and have not yet received the ballots.
For this reason, the president of the PP reiterated his message to the postmen, to whom he again asked for "an effort", because "although I know that the number of members has increased, the unions say that they are insufficient", for this reason "I ask you , due to personal and professional responsibility, that even if their shift ends, if they have to do the afternoon shift, they do so", because it is not a normal letter "but they guard a sacred right", and that if there is no commitment to pay that effort, he will make up for it if he is president. "There can be no votes left in the mailboxes," Feijóo stressed.
Asked by Federico Jiménez Losantos and it is possible that this could happen, that not all the votes would arrive, and if he would then challenge the elections, the PP president was cautious: "I cannot contemplate that scenario, because it would have enormous political and legal significance." and he trusts that the postmen get the job done, working the hours they have to work, so that "it doesn't give rise to a situation that I don't even want to think about."
Alberto Núñez Feijóo recalled that he was president of Correos, and that his employees "are of indisputable professionalism." But his appeal to the effort comes "after seeing for weeks the discussions of CC.OO, UGT and Csif", which asked that 14,000 reinforcements be hired to distribute the 2.5 million votes that the unions already expected They were going to be requested, because of how the campaign had started.
A contract that according to the president of the PP "is highly complex, because trained personnel are needed, who, in addition to distributing, have to prove the identity of the person to whom they deliver it, or leave an acknowledgment of receipt. An operation, he said , in which "the reputation of the company is at stake", because if the vote does not arrive, even if it is for 100,000 people, there will be a problem, since if the vote by mail has been requested, the person will not be able to vote in person, because the Table will not let you.
That is why he considers that "we cannot be stingy", because what it is about is that "not a single vote is left undistributed" and that "regardless of whether the workforce is sized or not, that they work morning and afternoon if necessary, even if they have finished their shift", to alleviate "the lack of foresight".
