María Guardiola (Cáceres, 44 years old) chose the colossal National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida, the work of the architect Rafael Moneo, for her official inauguration as president of the Junta de Extremadura, the first woman in history to hold this position. The monumental setting chosen not only represented a nod to history but also the only predecessor that the Popular Party has had in this position in Extremadura, José Antonio Monago, who 12 years ago, then under the advice of Iván Redondo, also staged in the spectacular central nave access to power, among sculptures of Augustus, Aesculapius, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter Amun or Medusa. In the selection of places as emblematic as this one, politics is also written, also in a clear differentiation with Guillermo Fernández Vara, who in the last two legislatures chose the institutionality of the headquarters of the Assembly of Extremadura.
As for the guests – some 500 – and in the middle of the last week of the electoral campaign, Guardiola could not see himself wrapped up as Monago did then by the leadership of the PP. So, in 2011, the former president of the PP, Mariano Rajoy, or the general secretary, María Dolores de Cospedal, were in Mérida. Now, between rallies and electoral interviews, only Elías Bendodo, general coordinator, and Pedro Rollán, vice-secretary for regional coordination, were there. Neither did any regional baron attend. In turn, the Government gave him a low profile and sent an undersecretary. In the morning, in an interview on TVE, Núñez Feijóo himself had assured that he had not “forced” María Guardiola to agree with Vox (she needed her five deputies) to become president of Extremadura, after the noise and the controversy was installed in the negotiations that were on the verge of an electoral repetition.
But that’s already the past. “You have to move on from the screen now,” he assumed on Friday when Guardiola herself was proclaimed in the Assembly of Extremadura. This Monday she wore a big, happy smile, dressed in a shiny white suit for such a solemn occasion. Also present at the event were former presidents Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, José Antonio Monago himself and Guillermo Fernández Vara, as well as the president of the Assembly, the socialist Blanca Martín, who had been in Valencia in the morning for the inauguration by Carlos Mazon.
The representatives of Vox were also in the main room of the MNAR, while María Guardiola was accompanied by the two women who are in charge of the other powers in Extremadura: the legislative branch, Blanca Martín, and the judicial branch with the president of the Superior Court of Justice from Extremadura, Maria Felix Tena.
“Dear María, welcome,” Guillermo Fernández Vara always told her in a very close tone while recalling that “in 40 years we have only had three presidents,” recalled the former president of Extremadura, praising the fact that the people of Extremadura had opted for “the stability”. “We are rivals, but we are not enemies,” Fernández Vara also suggested, always close on the spot with the new president of the Board. And he made himself available to her, also speaking for Ibarra and for Monago, for when he needed his advice. “It’s your time, Maria.”
In a twelve-minute speech, the new baroness of the PP first quoted the Roman poet, Ovidio, with this quote: “Sometimes tears are heavier than words”, noting that she could get emotional throughout her speech . And then, she stressed: “I feel like the luckiest woman on earth” to later say: “Four years of work, demand, enthusiasm and responsibility await us in this land to which I am deeply grateful for having given this opportunity”. And she qualified: “First of all, I am from Extremadura.” Along these lines, she did not hesitate to say: “We are going to get Extremadura out of the bottom of the rankings”; and for this, he indicated, that he will try to form “the best executive this land has ever known”, a government team that, he asserted, “will be brave, non-conformist and loyal” and that, among other things, will be “at ground level”. because “the carpets and the rigidity, the pageantry are over”. “I want a light,” she-she added, doors and windows open that don’t give options to the darkness.
On the functioning of his new government, Guardiola asserted “Hopefully we will undertake a profound transformation” of this region, which will lead him to “remove Extremadura from the bottom of the rankings” and for this, he predicted: “We will not rest until we find a solution to each one of Extremadura, in the small and in the big, in the lofty and in the simple”. In parallel, he indicated that he will not waste time “on the anecdotal” after a while, he clarified, which comes “from confrontation and extremism.”
Hence, in the speech she advocated a “serene, conciliatory and mature” mandate to dedicate her last moments to paying loving tribute to her family (her husband, her mother and her children), “my refuge” from the “worst moments”, that she has suffered, and a lot, in the last weeks (she said “years”).
And his last sentence was this: “We will be up to the task, you can be sure,” he told those present. And he already undertook the road to the presidency of the Junta de Extremadura once Fernández Vara had returned the keys to the official residence of the Presidency hours before, on José Fernández López avenue, next to the river, to the president of the Assembly from Extremadura. After a tortuous road full of thorns, his new tenant has the name of a woman: María Guardiola.
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