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The revolt that has been unleashed in the PP on account of the coalition with Citizens in the Basque Country threatens to take the lead of Alfonso Alonso, popular president in that community.

The former Minister of Health decided not to attend the meeting held on Friday in Madrid between the national directorates of the PP and Citizens, to which he was invited. If Pablo Casado gave the ball to the team, it was because he "does not share" the pre-agreement reached by both formations to attend the Basque elections next April 5 in coalition.

But in the prefix "pre" was the key: a pre-agreement is not an agreement. And the truth is that, as EL MUNDO has been able to know, in that meeting there were very significant advances for the Basque PP, which recovered second place in the list of Alava , improved the economic conditions for his party, tied the unconditional support and Citizens immovable to the Basque concert and managed to consolidate its own brand, with its acronym and with the concept of "sum" wanted by the popular Basques: PP + Cs .

That is, Alonso did not attend a meeting in which his theses were imposed on almost all points. And, as stated in rebellion, no one from the national PP told him that, in the final agreement, already without prefixes, Citizens had yielded in some of the issues that most scaled him.

"We have been improving the agreement for two days while he broke it," complains a popular leader. Because what the Basque leader rejected was not the final proposal, but what the leader of Citizens José María Espejo had advanced, skipping the silence pact he had signed with the national PP.

"Alonso, in a dead end"

Alonso considered it closed, and that miscalculation prevented him from capitalizing on the advances favorable to his training. The story went from "Alonso manages to give Citizens a little more" to "Alonso, in a dead end", staged the popular .

The only thing in which Alonso's theses were not imposed was in the transfer to Citizens of number two on the list by Vizcaya . But the PP will finally have the number two of Álava , which is the most important Basque province for the center right. The oranges are relegated to third place, and also get number three from the Gipuzkoan list and second in Vizcaya.

This province is where one of the main frictions of Alonso with the national direction of the PP. The Basque leader wants to take the first two positions, because they are the ones who have real chances of being elected, and he needs a place for his general secretary, Amaya Fernández , and for Antón Damborenea . In Genoa they answer that the last word of the lists will have it, in any case, Pablo Casado.

On Thursday, shortly after the Basque PP tweeted that what was announced by Ciudadanos was "unassuming", Teodoro García Egea, number two of Casado, and Inés Arrimadas, spokesperson for Citizens, held a conversation in which they rectified some of the points of the agreement, always in favor of the Basque PP and with an improvement of the internal economic conditions of the coalition.

After calling him on the phone, at midnight on Thursday, Ana Beltrán - number three of the PP - sent a whatsapp to Alonso in which he was scheduled for Friday's meeting at 11.00. To communicate the improvements already agreed and to make it a participant in the negotiations in which others were obtained.

"Where are you?". "I'm not going"

At 1:00 p.m. on Friday, Beltrán called him again and said: "Where are you? We have summoned you here at 11". The president of the Basque PP replied: "I will not go." The reason, that he was not going to sign something that "he doesn't share". That was when Casado's team decided to pick up the glove: "Either accept the pact or you will have to leave," as this newspaper advanced. Faced with this dilemma, the Basque PP began to fall back on the agreement, tweeting : "There is time to adjust it to reality."

Alonso criticizes Genoa for not making him part of the negotiations from the beginning. His complaint is considered "logical" in the Basque PP, where the majority feeling is that it should have been given a greater role. It happens that, according to this newspaper this Saturday, Alonso did the same with his subordinates: he did not warn the territorial leaders that he was not going to attend the meeting and, therefore, was going to declare in rebellion against Casado.

Popular leaders of Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa affirm that the former Minister of Health did not inform them that he was going to launch an "ordage without letters" to the national leadership, and they are concerned that he is doing the same thing he criticizes.

"And in Vizcaya it is precisely where the Basque PP has more affiliates", the popular defenders of this province defend. "He only had the support of Alava" to take the pulse, say the sources consulted.

On February 6, the Basque PP held a regional Board of Directors, but the provincial boards have not met, so they have not been able to confront ideas about PP + Cs, yet. They will do this Monday, by elevation, in the new regional meeting.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • PP
  • Basque Country
  • Alfonso Alonso
  • Pablo Casado
  • Teodoro García Egea
  • Citizens
  • Inés Arrimadas
  • Basque Country Elections

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