Those close to Abascal are castled in the Balearic Islands and Vox threatens to break pacts with the PP if it gives in to the "traitors"

Eduardo Colom Palma

Vicente Coll Madrid

Palm

Madrid

Updated Tuesday, January 30, 2024-13:28

After the fracture of its parliamentary group in the Balearic Islands, Vox will sell its skin dearly and is not willing to give up the presidency of the regional Parliament, which its member

Gabriel Le Senne

has presided over since last summer. Furthermore, he threatens to break the agreements he maintains with the PP in other key institutions, such as the Consell de Mallorca.

Le Senne is one of the men loyal to the national leadership who was unexpectedly expelled yesterday from the parliamentary group by decision of five dissident deputies from the party leadership. Five regional parliamentarians led by

Idoia Ribas

who have blown up the party in the archipelago and whose votes are decisive for the PP to maintain the parliamentary majority in the Islands (the popular ones have 25 of the 59 seats in the Chamber).

Yesterday, the still president of the Parliament showed his loyalty to the party and, in statements to this newspaper, he showed his disenchantment with politics, which he entered months before the 2023 regional elections with the help of Santiago

Abascal

's party . His appointment was unexpected as he was an unknown figure in the world of local politics.

However, today that disenchantment has turned into cantonment, also on instructions from the national leadership of the party. Le Senne has requested that tomorrow the Parliament Board, which was supposed to review his departure from office, request

legal reports

to clarify whether his expulsion from the group is legal and if the law supports him to continue in office.

Le Senne himself explained today that they are analyzing the matter "in depth", thus making his departure more expensive and, above all, placing the ball in the court of the PP, which controls the Board and must decide on who should succeed Le Senne in in case it comes out.

This is where the aspiration of the wayward Vox deputies comes into play, who keep the parliamentary group in their hands after the expulsion of Le Senne and

Patricia de las Heras

, still president of the party in the Balearic Islands. De la Heras has stated that the actions of her former bandmates, whom she calls "traitors" is "embarrassing" and causes her "others' shame."

Wayward candidate

Although they have not confirmed what they will do, limiting themselves to pointing out that they will propose "the ideal person for the position", the deputies who have slammed the door on the national leadership of Vox plan to present Idoia Ribas as a candidate to preside over the Parliament. For Abascal's leadership, a red line that they hope the PP does not cross.

And the pulse of Le Senne and De las Heras has the support of the national leadership of Vox, which even raises the issue against the Government of

Marga Prohens

and already threatens to break the agreements with the PP in the island councils, which It would significantly weaken the

stability

of the right-wing Executive in the archipelago and would open a gap that could even jump to the rest of the communities in which the PP and Vox form a coalition.

Vox has increased that pressure in this way precisely after the wayward deputies try to achieve the presidency of the Parliament as a bargaining chip for the support of Prohens, who needs five supports to achieve a

sufficient

majority of

30 deputies

. The two votes of the parliamentarians loyal to the party apparatus would not be enough, which would force him to rely on the wayward ones.

Now, Vox leaves the full weight of the decision on the PP to check which side it is on and whether it supports maintaining the pact with Abascal's party, something that would translate into Le Senne remaining in the presidency of the Parliament.

According to party sources, there is a regulatory

"loophole"

that could allow its continuity as the island's second authority, but Vox is also preparing for a possible battle in the courts while waiting for what the chamber's technical reports elucidate.

If the figure of Le Senne is not supported as president of the chamber, the institutional crisis between the PP and Vox would already jump to the national level and put on the ropes the rest of the regional and municipal pacts that both formations share in five autonomies - Castilla y León , Valencian Community, Aragon, Region of Murcia and Extremadura - and several important municipalities.

This Tuesday, the general secretary of Vox,

Ignacio Garriga

, minimized the party's internal drift and called the "kidnapping" of the parliamentary group in the Balearic Islands an "anecdote." Of course, he warned Marga Prohens of the difficulties she would have in governing without the support of the two non-attached deputies and basing her alliances solely on the five rebel parliamentarians: "The legislature will be uncertain," she considered in an interview on RNE.

Prohens calls for calm

The president of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, has pointed out that, after the crisis in Vox, the regional Executive continues to ask for responsibility and that this situation that affects the Parliament be resolved "as soon as possible, as previous exactly the same situations have been resolved." ".

In statements to the media in Formentera, the leader of the Balearic Executive has assured that

governability "will not be affected"

by an internal crisis of a party. Furthermore, she has indicated that she cannot add anything new to what was already stated this Monday "since there is no news that implicates the Government."