The ‘annus horribilis’ of Pablo Casado, by Andreu Claret

The leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, which ended the year 2020 by challenging Santiago Abascal from the center, with that “this far we have come & rdquor ;, ended 2021 attacking Pedro Sanchez with a loud “what the hell has to happen? & rdquor; destined to establish himself as the undisputed leader of the rights. The first strategy did not work because there was little left to fish in the Ciudadanos fishing grounds. The second, which has presided over the entire performance of the PP leader during the year that ends, does not seem to bear the expected results either. The polls give him better results than those of 2019, but there are few that predict the possibility of building a majority. And they all indicate that Vox voters are unmoved when Casado raises the decibels and multiplies the occurrences to attract voters from the far right. Santiago Abascal, on the other hand, ends the year with better prospects. If Sánchez endures the onslaught, Casado will remain at the feet of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the PP will know a crisis from which it can benefit. If the economic recovery is delayed and the PP takes flight, it will sell the Vox support to get to Moncloa.

It has not been a good year for Casado. To the dilemma presented by the tough persistence of a political formation on his right -something new in the tradition of the Spanish conservatives-, the challenges of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. The first has questioned the party apparatus. The second has questioned his leadership status. With Ayuso, it has happened to Casado as with Vox. He has tried everything, to no avail. He started the year supporting the catastrophic management made by the president of the snowstorm that paralyzed Madrid, without her thanking him for it, and ended 2021 entangled in an umpteenth brawl over the Christmas dinners of the party that Ayuso wanted to celebrate no matter how much omicron had. Madrid’s healthcare collapsed. Bad issue for a politician who aspires to be president of the Government and is unable to bring himself to the waistline of those who embrace the ideology of freedom to challenge him every day from the media. An attitude that the Duchess of Toledo described as “welcome with fears & rdquor; in the merciless book that he published late in the fall. No matter how much he said that he had written it so that Casado could arrive at Moncloa – something that Ayuso also repeats every time he criticizes the leadership of the PP – Álvarez de Toledo searched where it hurts Casado the most: his difficulty defining a strategy, so as not to lurch between the nods to the center and the populist eccentricities.

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As if that were not enough, the year ended for Married to a reprimand of the president of the Xunta, the baron with more prestige within the PP. Alberto Núñez Feijóo asked him for the “serenity & rdquor; and the “tranquility & rdquor; demanded by many peripheral party leaders, alarmed by the political tension and by the persistent tension between the party leadership and Díaz Ayuso. They fear that the unbreathable atmosphere of Madrid politics may affect their own expectations and they demand a return to the more centrist politics that Casado exhibited at the beginning of 2021. Will the PP leader pay attention to him, or will he remain a prisoner of Ayuso’s challenges, of Álvarez de Toledo’s taunts and of the forgiving recommendations of Jose Maria Aznar, who urged him to decide “where do you want to be and what do you want to do & rdquor ;, at the national convention of the PP. Without using Álvarez de Toledo’s sour tone, Aznar thus insisted on the idea of ​​a zigzagging Casado, who began the year by challenging Santiago Abascal and ended the year competing with him in bravado. Which of the two Married will prevail in 2022? The fears Álvarez de Toledo referred to make it difficult to predict. Most likely follow hostage to the political climate that reigns in Madrid. The foreseeable victory of the PP in the autonomous regions of Castilla León and in Andalusia, if there is an advance, it can create a mirage, because they will be due more to the disappearance of Citizens than to a cut in Vox that continues to rise in the polls. And when the presidential elections are about to fall, Casado will no longer be able to continue lurching. You will have to decide with what strategy you want to reach Moncloa.

Reference-www.elperiodico.com

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