When Juanma Moreno decides to erase the initials of the PP in the Andalusian campaign and close the door to the massive landing of barons before the elections, so that they do not distort his message, he is sure that in this PP no one is going to discuss that decision. He only settles, among other reasons because he is one of the three most powerful leaders that the party has in this new stage, based, as a reaction to the previous one, on the utmost respect for the territories and the decisions of their regional leaders.
“A ‘light’ federalism is being imposed within the party,” warns a PP deputy. It is an opinion shared by many of his colleagues, inside and outside Congress, who see how overnight there has been a shift from a vertical model, with a strong presidency that was imposed on the barons, to another more horizontal or transversal model. , where power is distributed and, above all, the autonomy of the barons and regional presidents to make their decisions is defended.
In an interview on RNE, Feijóo was asked if he would approve a PP pact with Vox in Andalusia after the June 19 elections, the president of the popular party assured that it would be “an interference” if he started “giving instructions from Genoa » to Juanma Moreno on how his government should be formed.
In the fall of Pablo Casado, Feijóo and Moreno went hand in hand in the configuration of the new PP and both were clear that one of the axes from that moment had to be respect for the regions, without interference or impositions from Genoa. In his distribution of power, Moreno placed his right-hand man, Elías Bendodo, as general coordinator in the national leadership, while Feijóo chose his general secretary in Galicia, Miguel Tellado, as deputy secretary of Organization. For the general secretariat they opted for a neutral and continuity decision: Cuca Gamarra.
Feijóo and Moreno took command of the new PP. But in practice there is a third very powerful leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. If the first two have the organic power of the party, the Madrid president has that of the street, that of the bases. She is now herself the most popular by far, beyond her own region. It would be impossible to build a new PP without her on the front line, and both Feijóo and Moreno know this, despite the differences that separate them. “The model will work as long as each one respects the other’s space,” they warn in the PP.
The relationship between Feijóo and Ayuso gives a lot to talk about in the PP, where many wonder when they will end up colliding, because they assume that they will do so sooner or later. For now, the president of the Community of Madrid has received the party leader with warnings. The first, when she went as a candidate for the national congress. “We are a team of soldiers who are going to accompany you but who have little patience for nonsense and little stamina for impositions,” she snapped at him then. More recently, at the reception on May 2 in Sol, she warned: «Madrid does not tolerate invasions from anyone».
Feijóo will attend the closing of the PP congress in Madrid next Saturday, to support Ayuso, but that same afternoon he will travel to Galicia to participate in the regional congress that will elect his successor. And in Andalusia, Moreno will step on the accelerator of his pre-campaign. The three most powerful leaders of the PP will thus share the limelight.
In this distribution of power, two other barons have been displaced: Alfonso Fernández Mañueco and Fernando López Miras, centered on their respective communities, Castilla y León and Murcia. But in the PP they believe that after the regional elections of May 2023, they will recover communities and new barons will emerge strengthened by that ‘federal model’ that is being imposed on the party. The decisive moment that will mark Genoa’s relationship with the territories will come during the electoral period, when the lists are drawn up, a true litmus test for the national and regional leadership.
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