Alberto Núñez Feijóo accelerates the renewal of the Basque PP. An urgent Board of Directors of the Popular Party of Euskadi will be held on Wednesday to convene an extraordinary congress to be held before Christmas. This is attested to by the call sent this Monday by Carlos Iturgaiz to the regional cadres of the party, to which EL MUNDO has accessed.
Precisely, in that congress Iturgaiz’s replacement will be elected as head of the Basque PP. Feijóo wants to “revolutionize” the organization to fight with the PNV for the useful vote of the center-right, and the favorites are, today, Javier de Andrés, deputy for Álava, who is currently the best placed, and Laura Garrido, general secretary autonomous community of the popular ones, which in recent weeks has lost steam among the leadership.
On the 4th at 11:00 a.m. the political operation will begin. The PP, which has come to blows with the PNV in the investiture, wants to take advantage of the demographic wave before the Basque elections, scheduled for July 2024 at the latest.
Feijóo knows that the Basque PP has “a serious problem” of harmony with the society of Euskadi, but he also believes that it has a golden opportunity due to the lack of strength of the PNV in the latest polls. After his dialectical clash with Aitor Esteban, whom he hit like never before and even asked if he wants to continue being “Sanchez’s Kleenex”, the president of the PP wants to occupy the “moderate” space of the Basque Country against some nationalists who are are being dragged along by the “progressive” bloc.
In fact, the general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, has tried to put his finger on that sore, ensuring this Monday that the jeltzales should clarify whether they are part of the “left-progressive” bloc as the PSOE and the acting head of the Executive maintain, Pedro Sánchez.
“When Sánchez talks about how after the July 23 elections a progressive and left-wing majority has been formed in Congress, I ask if Junts is within the progressive and left-wing majority in Congress, but above all if the PNV, because I didn’t know that the PNV was left-wing progressive,” he said at the press conference after the PP Steering Committee.
Feijóo himself expressed it in the Chamber last Wednesday. “There is a PNV voter who is uncomfortable seeing how his party votes the same as Bildu. There is a moderate Basque Nationalist Party voter who finds it difficult to understand that he is part of the coalition with Bildu, ERC and the Communist Party,” said.
“I feel respect from the disagreement for the PNV and also empathy for some of its cadres, for its voters and for its social base, among other things because a good part of its social base is ours,” he told Esteban, adding : “Don’t laugh. We’ll see how we end up in the next Basque elections.”
In the PP they believe that this tactical move could leave Vox “without room for maneuver” to criticize Feijóo for his proximity to nationalism. “They can no longer say in the future that the PP is always trying” to seduce the PNV, sources from Genoa recently added.