The start of the legislature has been placid for the PP and Vox coalition that governs the Generalitat Valenciana. With the exception of some loose statements by the First Vice President and Minister of Culture, Vicente Barrera - very focused on fighting the cultural battle and “fighting Pan-Catalanism” -, the Valencian president has not had an uncomfortable traveling companion in his partners.
However, it seems that Vox's strategic position could change with the intention of tightening the screws not only on Carlos Mazón's executive but also on all the regional presidents who govern thanks to Voxist votes.
Yesterday, a day after a meeting of the national leadership of his party in Madrid, Barrera called the media to show his disagreement with the 'Community Pride' campaign. “We do not join. In the Valencian Community there is no problem of discrimination, inclusion and respect,” said Barrera to distance himself from the initiative that the head of the Consell presented this weekend within the framework of the Benidorm Fest. An event that the Minister of Culture did not attend for personal reasons. In his speech before journalists, Barrera was not exactly very enthusiastic about the song Zorra by the Alicante group Nebulossa, which on Saturday won the contest that gives the ticket to Eurovision.
Yesterday was the second press conference that Barrera called to make a statement - the previous one was to confront the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun - and the first time that the vice president of Vox took a position against a measure promoted by the Government of which it is a part. Sources around Barrera confirmed that “it may be the first, but it will not be the last.”
A way of hinting that the formation led by Santiago Abascal intends to mark its own profile where it governs. A circumstance that they are already experiencing in other institutions such as the Valencia City Council, where the relationship between PP and Vox has not been so simple so far this term.
The new strategy has not gone unnoticed within the Valencian government, where this Tuesday there was some uncertainty due to the position of its partners in the Consell. However, no one wanted to talk about a crisis between the government partners. Barrera himself denied the major issue and emphasized that PP and Vox have “a common project for the Valencian Community” but that they are “two different parties.” As an example, the leader of the ultranationalist formation threw a cape at the Valencian president regarding water and appeared “absolutely alienated” with the popular leader's support for transporting water in ships from Sagunt to Catalonia.
This being the case, it is naive to think that the stability of the Valencian government is at risk because Vox is not going to undo autonomous pacts and get rid of the little capacity for influence they have in the national political panorama. He already made it very clear, to the relief of the PP, that the break in relations with the party chaired by Nuñez Feijóo was limited solely to the national arena. All in all, it seems that the strategy involves increasing the clash with the PP to have its own profile and prevent the popular ones from eating them politically in the coming months.
Until now, Vox has sought to tickle Mazón on issues such as the Valencian Academy of Language (AVL) or the signs of identity, showing a more radical profile than the PP on the linguistic issue. He has also not hesitated to position himself against debt forgiveness and has not gotten off the horse with his interpretation of gender violence or the relativization of climate change. Debates that have been generated more in the parliamentary and party spheres than within the Consell.
In fact, none of the Valencian executive's actions had caused Vox's rejection, until yesterday. And yesterday's scene, without prior communication to the president of the Generalitat, is very reminiscent of the day when vice president Mónica Oltra (Compromís) and vice president Héctor Illueca (Unides Podem) met, in that same headquarters, to oppose the ropes to Ximo Puig and defend the implementation of the tourist tax.
