After the face-to-face between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the seven-party debate between the party spokespersons, the campaign agenda for the 23-J general elections has a new television meeting this Wednesday, July 19. RTVE raised a four-way debate with the main candidates to preside over the next Government, but only three of them will finally be on set: Pedro Sánchez, Yolanda Díaz and Santiago Abascal. The absence of the PP blurs the pulse. But why isn’t Feijóo going to the debate this Wednesday?
The truth is that the decision of the popular has nothing to do with the development of the campaign. They already made their position clear at the end of June: Feijóo will not go to the RTVE leaders’ debate for not including ERC, PNV and Bildu.
The PP explained the absence of its leader in the debates to four, claiming that “they are incomplete models and lack interest.” Instead, the formation raised a seven-person debate in which the four national leaders participated, plus those of the PNV, ERC and EH Bildu. “Because the three forces have spent five years drafting the laws that the PSOE endorses and setting the positions that the Government defends,” they justify from Genoa.
This position has been ratified again today by Feijóo himself, who in an interview, has maintained: “If they have vetoed the seven from debating and what they want to debate are the partners among themselves, it can be very entertaining, but that is not a debate, it is a program in which three leaders are going to speak with four others missing”
The refusal to attend the debate must also be framed in the current position of the PP with respect to the public entity. Esteban González Pons, deputy secretary of the party and member of the negotiating team for the debates, accused RTVE by letter of “being part of the PSOE’s campaign strategy.”
More recently, González Pons continued charging against the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation from his Twitter account: “I think that RTVE is going to lose the elections. And I hope that the next day the leaders of that party resign, as is done in all parties when they lose the elections to which they are presented. Better not go. I neither see her nor go”.
The leader’s last appearance on public television did not help improve relations between the parties either. On July 17, Alberto Núñez Feijóo had an intense scuffle with Silvia Intxaurrondo, presenter of La hora de La 1, who did not hesitate to dismantle some of the popular leader’s responses.
In this context, the Popular Party has not considered changing its mind about the absence of Feijóo in the debate this Wednesday (10:00 p.m.), which will be moderated by Xabier Fortes and will last 90 minutes.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
