In Spain, the great party of the fractured right

The People's Party is currently experiencing its worst internal crisis, as an open war takes place between its national leader Pablo Casado and Madrid President Isabel Diaz Ayuso.

© GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP

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3 mins

The Popular Party, the major conservative opposition party that has long governed Spain, is currently in a state of shock.

It is experiencing its worst internal crisis, when an open war takes place between its national leader Pablo Casado and the president of the Madrid region Isabel Diaz Ayuso, considered to have a bright future.

She would be involved in a corruption scandal, in which her brother would have received a commission for the alleged illegal purchase of 1.5 million anti-Covid masks.

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With our correspondent in Madrid

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The crisis broke out on Thursday February 17 and all weekend the party was torn between supporters of one or the other of the two leaders.

An irreparable tear according to observers.

This Sunday around noon, around 4000 people demonstrated in front of the national headquarters in Madrid to defend

.

President of the Community of Madrid since 2019, she won the regional elections hands down in May 2021 and governs with the support of the far-right Vox party.

Like these demonstrators, many conservative activists want her to be the conservative candidate for the 2023 legislative elections. This Monday, Pablo Casado convened a steering committee which risks being bloody.

According to general opinion, including from the leaders of

's Party , at the end of this war, only one will remain in the running: Pablo Casado or Isabel Diaz Ayuso.

A fraudulent purchase of anti-Covid masks at the origin of the crisis

The root of the problem between the two main figures of the party is that Isabel Diaz Ayuso is very popular, that she won the Madrid legislative elections hands down in May 2021 and that she is seeking the presidency of the People's Party, no more no less.

Opposite, Pablo Casado and his team are doing everything to prevent it and say they have proof, after putting a detective on the case, that Diaz Ayuso is involved in the fraudulent purchase of anti-Covid masks in April 2020. A case in which his own brother would have received 286,000 euros.

The applicant acknowledged the existence of this contract, but assured that it was legal and that she had nothing to do with it.

Since then, the party leadership has watered down its wine and accepted its explanations, but the damage is done.

What solutions for the party?

Next July the big party congress will be held.

Isabel Diaz Ayuso will certainly come forward to replace Pablo Casado, who feels weakened with this open crisis and the fact that the regional barons no longer have confidence in him.

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: Regional elections in Madrid: a national political reorganization

Pablo Casado now has a choice: or he does not decide and he is in great danger of being overtaken by the popular president of Madrid who could take his place at the head of the party and perhaps then at the head of Spain.

Either he expels her from the popular party, and then Isabel Diaz Ayuso, who is a fighter, risks creating her own movement and thus weakening the classic right and strengthening

, in full swing, an extreme right delighted with this leadership war.

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