The national convention of the PP that started yesterday in Galicia should serve to relaunch an alternative of government perceived as such by all Spaniards.
In recent times, the strong wear suffered by the Executive has become evident, as a result of the poor health and economic management of the pandemic, the humiliating transfers to the Catalan and Basque independence movement and the ideological rancor within a coalition to which they support all the enemies of the Constitution.
But
the PP will
wrong to trust yourself and assume that power will fall into your hands
as in the times of bipartisanship, due to the absence of the adversary or the resigned useful vote of the citizen fed up with the sectarian agenda and the ineptitude of sanchismo. The managerial confidence and the illusion of change of the Spaniards must be worked on. And that is the great pending challenge for Pablo Casado.
This convention wants to be the showcase of the ideas, the program, the team and the leadership of a renewed PP that aspires to La Moncloa.
It would not be fair for the organic noise generated around the dispute for control of the Madrid PP between Genoa and Sol to overshadow the effort made during months of preparation.
But Casado's team must live up to their own expectations and offer a debate on basic ideas, clear programmatic flags -with the economy and the independence challenge in the foreground-, proven competence in the cadres and an established and recognized leadership. .
At this stage of democracy,
the PP must not go crazy chasing a new ideological identity
.
It has always been the great party of the Spanish center-right, which brings together plural currents - liberal, conservative, Christian Democrats - but gathered around the defense of individual freedom, private initiative, equality before the law, the protection of the family and the commitment to the historical continuity of the nation.
The bankruptcy of the bipartisanship and the emergence of Cs on his left and Vox on his right have often destabilized the popular compass.
But today many center-right voters have learned the moral of the electoral fragmentation of the opposition -which has benefited Sánchez so much- or they have learned from factionalist essentialism, which means that they are in an excellent position to be permeable to Casado's message, chosen in primaries precisely for
achieve the regrouping of everything that remains to the right of the PSOE
.
That is why the president of the PP would do well to follow the advice of the two veteran leaders who yesterday embraced him, Rajoy and Feijóo, supporters of broadening the sociological bases of the party, capturing even the disenchanted social democrat.
If the first reminded him that the Spanish have historically entrusted the PP with the straightening of the economy - "There are no two without three" -, the second urged him not to fall "into nostalgic postulates" in allusion to Vox.
The PP has its own reformist and moderate way to seduce the voter, without denaturing itself and without betraying its promises
.
Better few but understandable, achievable and non-negotiable.
The Spanish already know what to expect from Pedro Sánchez and his partners.
Now they must know what to expect from Pablo Casado.
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