An illustrious member of the new generation of PP leaders, José Luis Martínez-Almeida (Madrid, 1975), a state attorney, has had a meteoric career in recent years. Hardened in opposition to Manuela Carmena in Madrid, he has been mayor of the capital for a year and has just risen to 'number three' in the Genoa ranks as national spokesperson. Key position before the start of a very difficult political course, marked by the second wave of coronavirus and its economic and social consequences.

Has the PP entered a new stage? The situation in which Spanish society is, demands that we be in a permanent update. I think that Spaniards are having a very bad time and they have to perceive that the PP knows how to adapt to each situation we encounter and generate empathy and closeness with their situation. Does making so many changes in a row does not transmit confusion? Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo had been appointed spokesperson in Congress a year ago, I don't think so. One cannot stand still. The evolution of the situation in Spain means that we have to adapt. In this case, it is understood that there must be different profiles than the ones there were. We have to strengthen communication, we have to make Spaniards see that we are very close and that we are very aware of the situation we are going through. We live in extraordinary political times and this requires that we have the ability to adapt and not remain in a fixed situation. A spokesperson in Congress like Cuca Gamarra, with political experience and managerial skills, was necessary; a person like Ana Pastor, who has been a minister and president of Congress, or a national spokesperson who wants to tell the Spanish that the PP is at their service. Was Feijóo's victory in Galicia decisive in the current change of the PP? Alberto Núñez Feijóo has shown that with the ideas of the PP the lives of citizens can be improved through management. For the entire PP, Feijóo is a benchmark because he is capable of bringing together majorities from his own project. What does the PP need from its national spokesperson? The ability to reach people, all those who are having a hard time, and tell them that There is a way out, that there is a solution, that there is the ability to put the shoulder together and move forward with the most complicated institutional, economic and social moment that Spain is going to go through in recent history. Can Pedro Sánchez be attacked in the morning and manage the Madrid City Council in the afternoon? Is that criticism is not lashing out. The government of the nation poses a choice: either unwavering adherence or destructive opposition. No, there is a middle ground. We are opposition, we are loyal, but loyalty is not with the Government, it is with the Spanish. It is not possible to understand that opposing is being unfair, which is what the Government intends to propose. Are you concerned that it affects your work in the City Council? My commitment to Madrid is total and absolute. And by the way, for those who ask about the roof, my roof is Cibeles and I'm not going to look beyond the Palacio de Cibeles.

SGV

Why can't the PP propose a government of concentration with the PSOE in this situation that we are facing? First, we cannot be in a coalition government with the PSOE and Podemos. Pedro Sánchez at the time clearly chose his partners and we cannot be the crutch of a president who has not shown loyalty to the main opposition party. Loyalty would simply be that in the difficult and dramatic times that we have gone through with the pandemic, at least he would have picked up the phone and called the head of the opposition. We should ask ourselves why this has not been the case. Because the normal thing in a democracy like the Spanish one is that the Prime Minister has a permanent channel of dialogue with the head of the opposition. All Spaniards would appreciate it. What is not easy to understand is that the President of the Government voluntarily renounces this dialogue. We have to act as a counterweight and generate an alternative, which does not involve being part of a government of concentration with Pedro Sánchez. And that does not mean that we do not have the capacity, as a state party, to support certain things, and we have demonstrated this in Congress these months. But we have to tell the Spanish that a way out of the crisis different from that offered by Pedro Sánchez is possible. What if that changes? If Pedro Sánchez called Pablo Casado and asked him, for example, to negotiate the Budgets? Or if Podemos left the Government? Does anyone trust Pedro Sánchez? Does anyone really trust that Pedro Sánchez can take that turn? Would anyone trust that this turn by Pedro Sánchez was not only for tactical or opportunistic reasons? Ciudadanos, who is going to negotiate the Budgets, argues it by saying that the interest of the Spanish is above. The PP is not worth it? It is that for Spain it is essential that there is a government alternative, that the Spanish can choose between the government project and that of the PP. Spain cannot be left without a voice other than that of this Government precisely at this time. Apart from that, I absolutely respect the movement that Ciudadanos has made. I am one of those who think that Ciudadanos acts in the general interest of Spain. What I do ask Ciudadanos is: have you achieved anything so far? When was the last time Pedro Sánchez called Pablo Casado? During the state of alarm there were three telephone conversations and the last was in May. In truth, the Prime Minister cannot pretend that with the situation in Spain he has not been able to speak to the leader of the opposition for three months. Nothing about education, nothing about sprouts. Nothing. What specific pacts could the PP reach? We are a state party, that has to be clear. Faced with those who, from an electoral space similar to ours, what they want is to create fireworks in the form of a motion of censure, we have to say that we do not care about ourselves, we care about the Spanish. And if that requires reaching certain agreements, the PP is going to do it. Would the PP support another state of alarm to stop the second wave of Covid-19 and coordinate the management of the autonomies? The Government cannot pretend to pass from the state of alarm to wash your hands and say that you no longer have any competition or anything to do with the pandemic. It cannot go from 100 to zero, there must be a middle ground, a responsibility, a coordination. The Government was told that it could not leave everything to the discretion of the autonomous communities. The figures at the moment are dramatic, Spain continues to be in the worst ratios of both infected and deaths. Faced with that, Pedro Sánchez cannot be excused because he has no powers. Of course it has powers. And a basic one: responsibility. The objective that the PP has set itself is ambitious, to return to 10 million votes, double the number it has now. Is that possible with Vox and Cs? Fragmentation of the center-right space only benefits the left. The existence of three acronyms in the center right is a phenomenon that is allowing the left to govern. Of the three, the PP is the only one with sufficient centrality to reach that mark of 10 million votes. We have to achieve it. In a crisis like the one we are in, disbelief towards politics and traditional parties can also grow. There is Vox's motion of censure in September, I imagine that Vox will accuse the PP of allowing the Government of Pedro Sánchez to continue, but what will be reinforced from that motion of censure is the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez. They raise a motion that has no chance of succeeding because it will allow a discourse of polarization and confrontation, which is what is best for Pedro Sánchez: keeping his electoral base intact by appealing, not to what is best for Spain, but to the to the ultramontana right of Vox. They give each other feedback. Why did Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo have to be dismissed? There were discrepancies. The parliamentary group is a fundamental instrument of action for the party, especially in the opposition, and if there were discrepancies, the logical thing was to settle them one way or another, in this case with dismissal. Was it a profile that made it difficult to win elections? People who are brilliant, and Cayetana is, do not make it difficult for the left to win elections. And Cayetana is part of that breadth that has to be within the PP. In that sense, I am not going to criticize Cayetana, she said that they accused her of reinforcing the radical profile of the party when there are many PP leaders who govern their administrations supported by Vox. Did you feel alluded to? No, because I believe that everyone in such a situation uses the arguments that they best believe in their defense. I have a pact with 85 points with Vox and for a year I have challenged the opposition in the City Council to tell me which of these points does not fit in our institutional framework and they are still not able to find any. in which the PP does not want to enter the cultural war? Whoever reads Pablo Casado's speech at the convention in which he was elected president or that of the January 2019 national convention, or who has read or listened to Pablo Casado's speeches in the Cortes throughout all this time, it is difficult for him to say that he does not want to give the culture war. But that is not incompatible with understanding at all times what is the situation in which Spain finds itself and the priorities that we must address. And above all, we must not fall into the traps set by the left, in the debates they want to open.

SGV

How is Casado's relationship with regional leaders? Is the PP a cohesive party right now? The PP is a cohesive party. That does not mean that we do not have freedom. Each of us in the game has the freedom to say what we want, but we are aware that we are part of a team. The PP is an absolutely plural party, where each one can have an opinion, but in which each one knows the course set, and in that sense we work as a team. Does Feijóo exercise or has he exercised as a counterweight to Casado? They do not act as a counterweight or Alberto Núñez Feijóo, neither Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, nor Isabel Díaz Ayuso. What they exercise is, apart from the presidents of the autonomous community, PP militants who give their opinion, such as José Luis Martínez-Almeida. Giving your opinion freely is not a counterweight. Feijóo always insists that you have to avoid noise in statements, absurd polemics ... You, as a spokesperson, are going to have a lot of responsibility in that. Are there going to be changes there? Are you going to avoid the thick line, the controversies? The PP knows that the best policy is the one that is made from the consideration of a State party and the consideration that we are the only real alternative to the Government of Pedro Sánchez, and that it requires criticism. Let no one doubt that we will continue to criticize. What we cannot do is remain silent based on our political adversaries telling us that by saying what we think we are teasing. And what we are not going to do either, and I believe that Feijoo is going along that line, is to fall into the debates that the left wants to raise, debates that do not interest the Spanish. The PP is not going to opt for confrontation and polarization and even less in moments like the ones we are experiencing. What is happening in Madrid? How can it be that I have such bad data from Covid-19 again? The situation that is being experienced in Madrid is not different from what is experienced in other autonomous communities, and I do not reduce the severity of the data, or the situation that we are living. I say this because there is a certain obsession with Madrid. It seems that in Madrid things are always much worse. It is a somewhat recurring obsession of the Government of the nation, trying to find a culprit to divert attention from their responsibilities and find the Community of Madrid. I believe that the data in Madrid are not worse. It is obvious that the number of infections is increasing, but it is also true that the health and care pressure is not the same as in April, neither the capacity nor the severity of the virus is the same as we had in April. But you do have to send a message, and especially to young people: at this time they have to assume that we live in a pandemic situation, that they have to continue making important sacrifices, which are the population group that is currently being more exposed to these infections. We must continue to exercise responsibility, and how is it possible that irresponsibility continues to exist after the pandemic we have experienced? Has there been a problem of awareness, of lack of communication from the authorities? I think it is a phenomenon that we have to study. You have to make people more aware. Huge sacrifices have been asked of the people. They were asked to change their way of life from one day to the next, and there may have been a certain relaxation as a result of having fought so hard for so long, but we have to emphasize that this is not expired, that we cannot take steps back, that we must face a very tough economic situation that will be more difficult to face if the outbreaks and infections continue to grow. The best vaccine is still ourselves. Don't you think that, once the state of alarm subsided, there were communities, including Madrid, that could have taken more restrictive measures? I think the measures were adopted based on the situation in the that at that time we were. Nightlife, for example, has not stopped having restrictions in the Community of Madrid. But it was also necessary to reactivate the economic sectors. Could more and more restrictive measures have been taken? Yes, but you have to see it at the moment. Those that were taken at that time were the appropriate ones. It is very difficult to maintain such a restrictive system for so long and in a situation of pressure as the Spanish are living. Do you think the classes in Madrid will be 100% face-to-face? I think it will depend on the health situation in which we find ourselves and of the coordination criteria emerging from that sectoral conference, which in my opinion was convened late. They must send the health criteria to agree that return. Do parents have to take their children to school? I think that if it is agreed that the regime is face-to-face, parents will have to take them to school, because all the measures will have been taken so that do safely.

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  • PP
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  • Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo
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  • Alberto Nunez Feijoo
  • Manuela Carmena
  • Isabel Diaz Ayuso
  • Galicia
  • Ana Pastor
  • Alfonso Fernandez Manueco

JusticePedro Sánchez and Pablo Casado, about to close the pact to renew the Judicial Power

CongressVox gives oxygen to Pedro Sánchez with an unworkable motion of censure

In a shirt of eleven rods De la Torre, mayor of Malaga: "I am not a loose verse of the PP. I express myself freely"

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