It is your week. For better and for worse. His team lives a tense calm, parapeted in a splendid villa with pool in Majadahonda. From there they supervise what is published these days. Accustomed to the crisis cabinets, after having been part of the communication team of the PP in Madrid, Isabel Natividad Díaz Ayuso looks serene but tired. It comes in a yellow shirt, black pants and white leather sneakers. "I am working. Here I am". His days these days range from half past five in the morning to one in the morning when he goes to bed.
It is Thursday, August 8 and the accusations about it multiply: "The 4,219 euros per month of Díaz Ayuso at the Esperanza Aguirre beach bar", "Ayuso owes the Madrid City Council five years of the IBI", "Díaz Ayuso collaborated with the Punic to improve the image of Aguirre on the internet »... Nothing encouraging headlines. His team leaves the work table. She and I stayed (her right hand, José Luis Carreras, communication director, is also there, although she will not participate). We will review what you have experienced these days and your life. He strikes back in his own way. «The campaign against me is because they try to ruin my investiture. Mark me and damage my honor, ”he says without hesitation. It has changed a lot since her first interviews as a candidate for the presidency of the Community of Madrid, in which she was hesitant and with long silences, to today when her voice has gone from acute to more serious, almost dry. While responding, draw lines on paper. He usually draws when he reflects, to keep calm. They are unconnected drawings, lines, landscapes, faces, rays ...
At 40, she will be the youngest woman who will preside over the Community of Madrid: 230,018 million euros of Gross Domestic Product and, in addition, the highest GDP in Spain per inhabitant: 34,914 euros. "It is an ideal age because you understand the concerns of young people and are close to the needs of the elderly." Ayuso's first political experience dates back to eight years. It has been said that he wrote a letter to Felipe González ... Were they more left-wing at home?
-I was always a very critical girl. I was interested in politics. More than left and right, the concerns of children are those of society: the environment, inequalities ... Already in the university years I had a deep love for freedom.
I endure it all. What hurts me is that they attack me using someone who cannot defend himself because he is dead. My father...
-A year later he lost faith ...
-I'm catholic. I grew up in those values and I defend them. Following the death of my grandfather I had a crisis of faith. That is all.
-Your parents had a bar and had several businesses .... Did they get along well to study journalism and not a career that allowed them to run the family business?
-My mother is from Madrid, from Chamberí, and my father from a town in Ávila. For a while my grandparents had a bar and my parents took him. It lasted little, they moved to Madrid, they liked the city. First they had a stationery, then my father worked in a computer company; My mother had her shop ... Yes, they took well to study journalism, although they also thought I could study architecture or something related to animals.
-Your father was hard on you. It is said that he even suffered a lot ...
-It was a decent, hardworking man, that all I wanted was for his family to be well ... I was independent, since I was very young I took my way. Today I have nothing but good words for him.
-He left home because of the bad relationship with him?
-Do not. I barely had a salary, I wanted to become independent. I always wanted to live my life my way ...
I was 22 years old. He moved first to Ecuador. Then he left for Ireland. He could stay in both destinations. He thought about it. But he returned: "Madrid is the best city in the world to live." I was 24 years old. They were the times of what was called the Spanish economic miracle ... With Rodrigo Rato in the lead. He would end up in jail. Yes, we will talk about him and corruption.
-When you return, what happened?
-I worked in web page companies, in communication agencies ... I went back to share a flat, I won between 600 and 800 euros. I paid 400 rent. But I had my space, my life.
-One year after returning, he joined the PP.
-And in New Generations I met Pablo Casado.
-After that, she was a FAES Foundation Scholar.
-That same summer.
-And then, he started working as a volunteer in the campaign with María San Gil .
-It was the end of 2004. And then I worked in a media outlet. I stayed with her to tour the Basque Country. It was one of the most enriching political experiences of my life.
-There he also met Santiago Abascal.
-Santiago was like most Basques: kind and sincere. It was from a generation harassed by ETA. Of those who looked at the bottom of the car, of those who drew them a target, of which their escorts knew their babies before the parents themselves. Both for me are references. I admire María San Gil ...
-A Abascal too?
-I admire the history of the family of Santiago Abascal. From them I must admit that they showed their faces in the PP in the toughest moments.
Ayuso keeps drawing. The lines are frantic. On the left arm he has a tattoo with an elongated flower. "It's the cover of a single from Depeche Mode, Enjoy the silence ." This song is, in turn, on an iconic album titled Violator . There is a theme entitled Personal Jesus. And, in his letter, a verse: "You need to confess" ... He nods.
-What do you need to confess?
-I confess everything. I usually confess everything. Everyone has sins. Me too ... But I must say that I have always been an honest person. Daughter of a family that lost everything in the crisis.
-They are days when they accuse her of everything ...
-The campaign against me is because they try to ruin my investiture. Mark me and damage my honor ... What I never imagined was that they were going to put my family in the middle because I have never done it. I never thought you could go that far ... I can stand it all. What hurts me is that they attack me using someone who cannot defend himself because he is dead. My father passed away in very hard circumstances. Nor do they think they can harm other people like my mother. And that doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
If I have to identify with a historical character, it is with Isabel la Católica ...
-They are reviewing your emails from your salary ...
-I have been an honest person who has worked very discreetly for many years. No one has ever called me to a court. Everyone knows in my party that I have been very hardworking ...
-Adrián de Pedro says that he was his interlocutor with the members of the Punic to improve the image of Esperanza Aguirre ... You have answered that he is «victim of this assembly. Of a latrocinio »...
-Do not. I have never spoken before. Not even the judge saw it interesting. They are statements from two or three years ago, dating back almost a decade ago. It is clear that I only collaborated with the communication of my political party, where with a team of volunteers we did an excellent job to bring the party closer to the citizens. The only link I can have is for technical reasons. I had no responsibility. Neither in hiring nor in choosing those people do not even know where they come from. My only responsibility was that my party charges speak on the internet to connect with citizens. I repeat that I have not even been called as a witness because there is nothing reprehensible in my performance.
-Let's go back to that 2007. It's up to him to live the crisis. His political rise began and the country went to hell ...
-I could not go worse. I always wanted to live without depending on my family. I never had a working relationship with my family. I have barely set foot in your company. By myself, I started from the bottom. With contracts in practice .... And my family, in a crisis that denied the PSOE, was left with nothing.
-The following year, he starts working with Aguirre.
-First, I was in the Ministry of Justice. Then, with Esperanza Aguirre, in her cabinet, for a few months. Then in the network of parks and clusters ...
-That's Madrid Network ...
-Yes, but at that time it wasn't called that. It was a pilot project.
-Today they call him the "beach bar of Esperanza Aguirre". You charged more than 4,000 euros. Did he deserve that salary?
-Some look yesterday with today's eyes. It was a different era, in companies and in all sectors there were other salaries. I was a person with a technical profile, in digital communication ... And I was very good at mine. I could have worked in many private companies both here and abroad. But I liked the Community of Madrid ...
-At that time it has been said that he managed the account of Pecas , Aguirre's dog
-One afternoon, in 2011, waiting for election results, we opened the Freckles account with my team. As a humorous account, they already did it in the White House with the Obama dog account. It was very common in political communication. I never took it, but the hoax remained.
-But I even interacted with him digitally ...
-I didn't talk to myself, please. It is an anecdote, a hoax elevated to the category of truth, which is part of the political game.
The napkin where he draws is full. He turns it around. The opposite side has golden lines. He wears the nails painted an uneven red. His team revolves around. They are Enrique Ossorio (responsible for the electoral program and PP deputy in the Assembly of Madrid), Alfonso Serrano (deputy spokesman for the PP in the Assembly), María Eugenia Carballedo (deputy and first secretary of the Assembly table). The host is MAR or Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, spokesperson for the first Aznar government. The new policy is sometimes so vintage ...
-What character in the story do you identify with?
- (Long silence) If I have to identify with a historical character it is with Isabel la Católica ...
-Well, maybe the woman with the greatest power in history ...
-For the project of unity of Spain and what it represented ... I also like women who have broken glass ceilings, break the established ... for being brave. Also those that have a simple but fighting history, like a cousin who has brought forward five children. Like my mother...
- Speaking of power ... It will have more real power than Casado himself, who chose it. Doesn't it scare you?
-I have no time. I am busy doing things right. In creating a project that continues to make Madrid the home of all Spaniards and all the people who come here to look for opportunities and live a life in freedom. It is the strongest economy in this country and the most supportive.
-He said that they want to create the image of "the little girl" ... Have they succeeded?
-I have received many criticisms, including from many journalists who have tried to create a concrete image for me. The language used is macho and there is no feminist who questions it. If it were a leftist policy it would not happen like this ...
- What hurt more: the resignation of Cristina Cifuentes, the sentence of the Gürtel or its correlate, the fall of Rajoy that would allow the presidency of Sanchez?
-It hurts that the great work of the PP is not recognized. It is very unfair. It is the most transformative party, the one that has made the most pioneering infrastructures, the one that has most respected the unity of Spain ...
-The reply is that it is the party with the biggest accusations of corruption ...
-I reject corruption wherever it comes from. And I recognize that it has hurt us. But I deny that the Popular Party is the most corrupt. If we combine the amounts and sentences, nothing exceeds using the money of the institutions, subtracting them from the unemployed to create networks and farmhouses; and it will not overcome the independence and the time of Pujol, which was the one that fed that social division and rolled up in the Catalan flag to cover so many cases.
-There is a proven corruption of members of his party. They are or have been in prison: Rato, Ignacio González, Bárcenas ...
-That's terrible. And more for those who for years have given the best years of our lives by vocation. For us it is painful and we have no qualms about justice being done. In the courts and not in the media.
-You deny having been part of that corruption gear within the party ...
-I can say that of course. I have never been part of any gear. Neither corruption nor anything ... No judge has even called me to testify. Until I was a deputy, I only had a technical profile. It is as if they blame you for an irregular contract of your company.
- Among the number of unfortunate phrases that have been attributed there is one that I have highlighted: «The worst of Spain is Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarra and Valencia».
-I was talking about nationalism that divides a society into these autonomous communities. It is surprising that I have to clarify that I love my country and every point of its geography. What is critical is that wealth, cultural diversity, be used to settle in institutions, to divide and use feelings. I will always condemn it.
-Do you love the traffic jams in Madrid?
-Evidently, no. I criticize the mobility policy made by Carmena, which has tripled them. I love the nightlife of Madrid, which is alive at any time. And it has those jams as a symptom.
-There are those who speak among whispers in Genoa that, if Sánchez calls general elections, the PP should attend along with Vox ... Do you support the idea?
-That Pablo Casado knows best. What I have clear is that the parties that we want a united country, a nation of free and equal citizens, we are proud of Spain, we have to understand each other.
-Sounds like a yes.
-Be understood. We try to do it with Citizens in the Senate. And he saw the election result. The parties that have common interests, whether with pacts or lists, we have to understand each other.
-We will close with his mother. How do you live this moment? The attacks, the presidency ...
-If I'm fine, she's fine.
-You are OK?
-I'm very proud and I feel the responsibility.
Time is up. Pose with the same outfit. There is hardly any traffic abroad. «I have confessed everything». Even that her boyfriend, Jairo Alonso, who was a stylist and hairdresser, now a marketing manager, lives with her after spending six months in Panama. The next day, Friday, other information against him. She, through her team, reiterates that it is a "political campaign orchestrated by the left, that there is no responsibility on their part." Díaz Ayuso, in his words.
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