Shot in Valencia: on the post... and in?

There is a party.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 14:22
4 Reads
Shot in Valencia: on the post... and in?

There is a party. Until the 28th, anything can happen. Alberto Núñez Feijóo started the campaign with a very graphic example: "The ball is on the post", and added: "If it goes in or not, we'll see." As the campaign has progressed, the president of the PP has been specifying the position: the ball is in, the ball is in the post, out. And so the ball has been oscillating, from inside to outside in numerous squares throughout Spain. But the popular leader is aware that whoever wins the election, the focus will be on two or three places. Seville and Valencia, among them.

In the capital of Túria, Feijóo, with Carlos Mazón, made a show of strength: he filled the bullring with 12,000 attendees, according to the people. Twice as much as Sánchez the previous day, according to socialist sources. Does this mean anything? Well yes and no. Not going to the square already denotes fear of not filling it, it means weakness. Choosing it as the site of one of the central events of the campaign, a demonstration of strength. The PP, yesterday, filled, but did not close. It covered the moat and the stands, except for the upper ones, but it did not reach what could be achieved during the era of absolute majorities, that of Aznar in 2000 and that of Rajoy in 2011. It is obviously a long way from the 55,000 souls that Aznar gathered in Mestalla on the eve of his triumph in the 1996 generals, but the older ones also remember this place because there are those who believe that the PP lost its absolute majority that year due to the excess of force that demonstrated in the centenary football field of Valencia.

Feijóo is reluctant to say, at this time, whether the ball is in or out in places like the Valencian Community, although he is inclined to place it in, which does not mean that it cannot go out. What the PP is convinced of is that the trend is positive, and that if the elections had been held yesterday and not next week, Carlos Mazón would be president, and the "change you deserve" would take place, as the its slogan And not only in the Generalitat, but also in the City Council. Yesterday the bullring vibrated, especially when Rita Barberá was mentioned, the mayor who can be replaced by María José Catalá, who, eight months pregnant, is campaigning convinced that this time it can be. The same does not happen in other territories, but there is a week left and it will not be for Feijóo. He wanted to fill a bullring, that of Pontevedra, the first time he was a candidate in Galicia. He didn't fill it, but he won, and so four times. Where will the ball fall? Now they say inward, but there are seven days left.