At this point in the war for control of the PP in Madrid, there are two things that are beginning to be clear. The first, that nothing will ever be as before in the political triangle formed by Calle Génova 13, Puerta del Sol and the old Telecommunications Palace next to Plaza de Cibeles, respective headquarters of the popular formation, the Community and the Madrid City Council.
The second, in line with the previous one, that “there is no going back,” as senior party leaders admit in conversation with this newspaper. And as Casado himself has already assumed, according to these sources.
In other words, the battle for the organic leadership of the party in the Community of Madrid, for which the president is running Isabel Diaz Ayuso but the mayor is not ruled out yet, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, it will leave scars. And also winners and losers.
The first wounds of the battle are still open on the canal. Singularly, the one that refers to a diminished (medically speaking) national convention of the PP, which will take place the first weekend of October in Valencia and which will be preceded the previous days by itinerant sectorial events in various parts of Spain.
Important personalities from politics and civil society are mentioned there. Among them, the presence of Mariano Rajoy in Santiago de Compostela and Jose Maria Aznar, the other former president of the popular government, in Valladolid.
It is an event that Pablo Casado He has been preparing with care with his team for a long time and that, if things do not change much, he will be almost completely overshadowed by the looming war in the ranks of the popular Madrid. To the point that the great unknown about that convention (until recently it was whether the former president of Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera) is whether or not Ayuso herself attends it.
The head of the Executive of Sol will maintain the suspense until the end since, as her team alleges, she does not know if by that first weekend in October she will have returned from her scheduled trip to the United States.
In principle, their place is at the table of regional presidents scheduled for Saturday, October 2, together with their counterparts and co-religionists. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, Juan Manuel Moreno and Fernando López Miras.
José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
But no one can be sure if he will be at that table of territorial barons, with the Galician, Castilian and Leonese, Andalusian and Murcian presidents, or he will simply arrive, grabbing all the spotlights, at the closing of the convention that he will do the next day Married with an act in the Valencian bullring. The same place where great historical meetings of the PP took place in which for years it was one of its main fiefdoms both at the regional and municipal level.
If it arrives on Saturday, it will monopolize the attention to the detriment of the barons, if it does so on Sunday in that of its national boss and leader of the opposition in Spain.
Winners and losers
Obviously, the main loser, if she did not finally achieve her goal of presiding over the organization, would be Ayuso herself. But if he succeeded, Almeida would also be touched, even if at the last moment he decided not to fight for the presidency of the PP in Madrid. All this in an internal debate that will last a long time already in its previous one. Practically the entire political course that has just begun.
The president of the Community of Madrid asked to advance the regional congress, which like all those of uniprovincial autonomies is scheduled to be held in the first semester of 2022. But the national leadership categorically rejected it this week, as the general secretary of the PP said, Teodoro Garcia Egea, asked about it in his weekly press conference after the meeting of the party leadership.
Therefore, the conclave will not be held in any case before January but it could be delayed even to June, always before the national congress in which, four years after prevailing in the primaries as Rajoy’s successor, Casado will revalidate his presidency. Something that will happen just a year before, if the calendar is not altered, to face Pedro Sanchez in a general election.
And of course, the idea of a “third way” or consensus presidency would also be defeated with an eventual victory for Ayuso, which would not be held either by the mayor or the regional president, but by someone with sufficient prestige among the popular people of Madrid.
As defeated or defeated as the person who has sounded the most for months as ideal to play that role, Ana Camins. She is the current general secretary of the Madrid Manager who leads Pío García Escudero and he has always been a person very close to Casado and Ayuso.
Nor does it seem that Camins is going to come out on the right foot from a crisis that is very reminiscent of the one that occurred seventeen years ago between the then president of Madrid, Hope Aguirre, and the then mayor, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón. The latter tried to prevent Aguirre from being the president by sponsoring the candidacy of his then number two, Manuel Cobo. The candidacy ended up withdrawing the same autumn of 2004, Aguirre strengthened his institutional and organic leadership and the rest, in the PP of Madrid, is history.
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Reference-www.elespanol.com