Iñaki Ellakuría Barcelona
Barcelona
Updated Monday, February 5, 2024-10:59
Abascal Assembly resolves its 'express' renewal and heads into its tenth year at the head of Vox without internal rivals
Crisis This is how Vox's Balearic powder keg exploded: emergency call to Garriga and 5 waywards "who remember Pedro Sánchez"
A member of Vox since the years of its founding in 2014, Ignacio Garriga has emerged from the Assembly reinforced as the undisputed
number two
and dolphin of Santiago Abascal, with the mission of preparing the party for the electoral cycle that begins in Galicia and that may determine the present and future of training.
Your choice as
number two
of Vox and the loss of organic power of Buxadé and Ortega Smith is a cosmetic change or is there a real will for change? Does it respond to the fact that the party is not the same since May 2023. We have a clear vocation for government and we are governing in five regions, in more than 100 municipalities. Our assembly has served to prepare us for the new reality of the party and above all to rearm ourselves humanly and politically in order to make a forceful opposition to Sánchez and the coup d'état. The party has changed after the last electoral events, for example, In the general elections it lost 19 seats. Have they made a diagnosis of the reasons for this decline? In the general elections Vox consolidated itself as the third force at the national level, against everyone and everything, since we suffered unprecedented demonization and stigmatization by the media , from EL MUNDO as well, which contributed to not pointing out the real culprit, which was the Socialist Party. Front pages were published daily with the lies and outrages of the PSOE and the PP against Vox, as well as offensive cartoons dehumanizing Abascal. That said, there were obviously people who opted for the so-called useful vote and supported the PP. A vote that has proven to be the most useful for the left and the most useless for defending the interests of the Spanish people. It is not the media's fault that Olona or Espinosa left Vox, nor the internal criticism expressed by some leaders... Isn't it Do you think that the management committed the sin of bunkerization? I want to make it very clear that Vox has defended the same approaches since 2014. It is curious that with Vox, not only the media, but also the rest of the political formations, unions and employers tend to use a double standard. All political formations make changes. There are people who enter, there are people who leave, but no one speaks in terms of a crisis of division or families, as is done with Vox. I want to remember that Feijóo on July 23 changed 75% of the heads of the list. Mrs. Ayuso changed all of her advisors in the Government of Madrid. Nobody talked about purges and divisions. Then, what happened in Vox is something normal that happens in organizations, entries for personal reasons, exits due to professional changes. So everyone is in cahoots against Vox? Vox is standing up and making many see themselves reflected in the mirror. That makes them nervous. We are aware of this and we accept it. We are strong, united and aware that we are the alternative in a moment as serious as the one we are experiencing, where a PP seems to be more concerned with whitewashing the PSOE, and acting in a collaborationist manner, than in creating a coherent opposition. , sincere and full-time. They criticize the PP but at the same time they are governing with them in autonomies and municipalities.Is Feijóo the problem for a right-wing alliance also at the national level? There is a clear difference in the relationship with the territorial PP and with Génova 13 and Mr. Feijóo, who are more concerned with marking distance with Vox than with doing so with the PSOE. There is no color with the relationship that we are having in the regions where we are being able to materialize those government pacts that we signed with the regional leaders of the PP, demonstrating that thanks to Vox things can be changed. We have lowered taxes, we have reduced political spending, subsidies to unions and employers, we are leading agricultural policies and protecting ranchers and farmers. We are ending the emptying of knowledge from education and the presence of ideological activists. We are different political formations, although we demonstrate that we can govern together. But Feijóo does not understand that we are called to form that alternative to
sanchismo
. We are not going to disappoint the Spaniards and we are going to do everything in our power, without betraying our principles, to evict them. There is talk of Vox unity after the Assembly, but in the Balearic Islands they have a mutiny... It is a fact isolated and a situation caused by five people who are clearly motivated by personal ambition. We have made all the information available to the Guarantees Committee to begin the process of the sanctioning file and precautionary suspension of membership. We apologize to the voters of the Balearic Islands because, without a doubt, because of five people, a great possibility of changing course or achieving historic milestones has been cut short. However, there should be no doubt that the Vox members who are in the island councils, the more than 40 councilors who are distributed throughout the islands and, of course, the two deputies who are in the Balearic Parliament are going to promote each and every one of the points that we signed with the PP. You are also the leader of Vox in Catalonia and you know Junts well. Do you think it will end up overthrowing Sánchez's legislature? A game is taking place between extortionists and professional traitors. Both Sánchez and Puigdemont are betraying and extorting each other, one to stay in power and the other to be able to return to Spain. Then, between extortioners and traitors, anything can be possible. I have no doubt that in the end they will reach an agreement so that Sánchez can continue sleeping in the Moncloa and Puigdemont can return to Spain. If there is an agreement the focus will once again be on the Senate, where you ask the PP to The Board does not accept the amnesty for processing. We denounce the lack of coherence in this sense of the PP. If we really believe, as they say, that we are facing the breakdown of the separation of powers and the destruction of the rule of law, it cannot be that we continue to act with absolute naturalness or democratic normality. It cannot be that the PP calls the Spaniards to rebellion on a Sunday in the demonstrations and on Monday makes an agreement with the Socialist Party. Then we understand that this rebellion would mean not admitting the law in the Senate. Beyond the fact that some say out of interest that it is not possible. We appeal to the Senate regulations that clearly speak of not processing bills that are openly contrary to the Constitution. In their speeches they continue to be very critical of the autonomous model. Do you maintain that it is necessary to change this territorial system? In the end what we want to promote is a decentralized State with the administration closer to the citizen, eliminating that bureaucratic mastodon that the State of the autonomies has become, which is no other something that the consecration of the inequality of all Spaniards. This obviously involves a constitutional reform and it will be the Spaniards who will rule on the matter.It is a topic that I am sure that Spaniards have already internalized deeply because they see, for example, that the education received in Catalonia or in Madrid or in Murcia is not the same, that it is not the same healthcare, health services... .. In short, this equality of Spaniards is not guaranteed. Not to mention taxes, where, for example, Catalonia leads the tax burden. When we denounce the autonomous system, we denounce it as the great system of inequality. PSOE and PP are negotiating the reform of the Judiciary, what is the model that Vox defends? We are at a time when we must do everything possible to protect our rule of law. The Constitutional Court has been taken over by the Socialist Party thanks to the collaboration of the Popular Party. Now they intend to take over the General Council of the Judiciary. That is to say, the Popular Party is helping the Socialist Party put an end to all counterpowers to the Government and we are denouncing it, aware of the serious situation in which we find ourselves. We defend that it is the judges who must choose those who are part of these bodies, because if what is happening now does not happen: some and others are fighting to see who controls the counter-powers and we arrive at situations as absurd and dangerous as that, with the amnesty, the legislative power decides what is a crime or what is not a crime, or that they are even capable of whitewashing terrorism in such a way that they come to forgive the crimes classified by judges and forgive them. The amnesty and the institutional rehabilitation of the independence movement by the Government, what consequences could it have in Catalonia, where we see that there is already beginning to be talked about a possible electoral advance. It is going to have a direct consequence and it is going to mean that parties that defend freedom and Patriotism in Catalonia will grow exponentially due to the seriousness of the Government of Spain pardoning those who carried out the worst episodes. The worst days we have experienced in our recent history in Catalonia, such as the burning of entire streets in Barcelona, the takeover of the airport, the assault and violence against the State Security forces and Corps, even against neighbors and relatives. Many citizens of Catalonia who suffered separatist hatred now see with absolute indignity how Sánchez wants to amnesty those responsible. I am sure that this will entail a constitutionalist reaction at the polls. The polls indicate that the PSC would win the elections again. Will the socialists be the great beneficiaries of their pact with nationalism? I hope it takes its toll on the PSC because it is largely responsible for separatism today being stronger than ever. We must unmask Mr. Illa, the Socialist Party as the new Catalan separatist party,because we must not forget that it was the socialists who allowed the reform of the Statute and introduced the so-called linguistic immersion, so disastrous for our schools. It is the PSOE that has permanently collaborated in the governments of the Nation with the transfer of powers, legislature after legislature, until reaching pardons and amnesty. Thus, the Socialist Party is not an alternative to ending decades of separatism. The only brave, determined and socially committed alternative to the freedom and prosperity of Catalans is VOX, because Ciudadanos is going to disappear and the Popular Party has shown that when it could, it did not offer an alternative. Catalonia is one of the communities most affected by the drought and the Government of the Generalitat is asking for territorial solidarity...The problem with the drought is the best demonstration of the lack or inability of management by separatism for 15 years. In the last 15 years they have not promoted any water infrastructure to avoid the situation we are suffering from, there has been no maintenance of the pipes, which lose millions of liters daily, and the Catalan Water Agency has not executed 50% of its budget. As always, now those who have to pay for their irresponsibility are the farmers and ranchers. And the ordinary people. How? With restrictions and fines, which is the only thing separatism knows how to do. They must be pointed out as the real culprits and also the PSC for not having done anything in the Generalitat.They must be pointed out as the real culprits and also the PSC for not having done anything in the Generalitat.They must be pointed out as the real culprits and also the PSC for not having done anything in the Generalitat.