Disembarkation of leaders in the final sprint of the Galician campaign: "Do not let nationalism reach this land"

Natalia Puga Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela

Updated Friday, February 16, 2024-21:48

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That the Galician elections transcend beyond the regional level has been clear since on December 21 the president of the Xunta and PP candidate for re-election, Alfonso Rueda, decided to bring them forward. It has been practically two months in which state politics has looked at this territory and in which the leaders of all parties have turned this land into their second home, Christmas included. In the final sprint, it has been confirmed once again, with the arrival of the leaders of PP, PSOE, Sumar and Vox, with acts from the right concentrated in A Coruña and from the left in Santiago.

Isabel Diaz Ayuso already advanced it on Thursday, the penultimate day of the campaign, calling these elections from Vigo "transcendental" for Galicia and for all of Spain. "I come from Madrid to ask Galicia to help all of Spain," said the Madrid president, bringing up that this appointment with the polls, the first after 23J and the investiture pacts, is interpreted as a test of the support of the population to the decisions of Pedro Sánchez's coalition government and can set new trends in all parties.

FEIJÓO, WITH WHEEL

Eyes are looking towards Alberto Núñez Feijóo and his leadership and he has been present throughout the campaign with an alternative caravan to the PP candidate, with events every day except two in which he took a break for the plenary session of Congress. To close, he did not fail either and starred in an event with Alfonso Rueda in A Coruña before 3,500 people, in which many supporters even had to stay outside.

The mass bath, the second largest after the historic rally with which they opened the campaign in Pontevedra before 14,000 supporters, allowed the 'popular' to close with their batteries fully charged and Feijóo to appeal to the Galicians to concentrate the vote on the PP to that Galicia does not "copy" the "social fracture" and the "flight of investments and companies" from Catalonia. "Do not let nationalism come to this land. There is no land that has done well with nationalism," he asked.

While Feijóo maintained that "this is about separatism or being together, breaking down what works or keeping the engine running," Alfonso Rueda appealed to "sentidiño" and maintained that "this is not the time to separate, it is the time to overcome one another." " and that "in a Galicia that overcomes itself there are many more advantages than in one that fights."

SÁNCHEZ, WITH BESTEIRO

The President of the Government and leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, has also had a constant presence in the pre-campaign and the campaign, with events in the four provinces, and in the final fireworks he did a double in A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. For the closing, he chose an event to support his candidate and man of his total confidence, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, before 1,500 people in the capital.

The president of the PSOE has called for the mobilization of all the people who chose their ballot on 23J. "If the half million people who voted for the PSOE in Galicia do so now, we will have a government like that in Galicia as well. The useful vote on July 23 is the useful vote on February 18," he said, while criticizing the state leader of the PP, "the only truth about Feijóo is that everything about him is a lie."

Gómez Besteiro, for his part, called for concentrating the left-wing vote in the PSOE, "the only guarantee of safe change", despite the fact that the socialists are currently the third force in Galicia and all surveys confirm that, if coalition government, it would be led by the BNG. Oblivious to the demographic trends, the socialist vote was claimed as the "results, practical, effective, useful" one against the "immobilism" of the PP.

DÍAZ, WITH LOIS

The leader of Sumar, Yolanda Diaz, has also supported the Galician candidate, Marta Lois, throughout the campaign and in the last two days. From Santiago, like Pedro Sánchez, the vice president of the Government called to put an end to the "official story" that "Galicians are conservative" and made an appeal to "working people", pensioners and students because "if they go out vote, Rueda falls, but he has to vote for Sumar".

Marta Lois, who throughout the campaign has predicted a "three-legged" progressive government with BNG and PSOE, asked for the last vote of the campaign to "govern this country with three" and insisted that "in Galicia we need a force like the ours, let his hand not tremble and put on the agenda the main policies that this country needs.

WE CAN and BNG, WITHOUT STATE LEADERS

The same city was chosen by the BNG to put the finishing touch to its campaign. Her candidate, Ana Pontón, held a party rally with 2,000 people and made a final call to concentrate the left-wing vote in her initials. "I ask all the people who want change to take the BNG ballot next Sunday, it doesn't matter who voted on other occasions, there are many ways to feel Galician and to feel Galician and they are all necessary to build the best Galicia," he appealed. she.

Pontón raised the BNG candidacy as a symbol of all just causes and asked for support to "make history with a female president" who, in addition, after 43 years of democracy with six presidents, all from state forces, will have, for the first time, " hands free". And he appealed to the undecided voter, ensuring that his party has "a solid and solvent project in favor of the social majority and the ability to carry it forward."

The only party on the left that opted for the A Coruña stage was Podemos. Its candidate, Isabel Faraldo, had the support of Pablo Iglesias on Wednesday and Irene Montero on Thursday, but at the end of the campaign she opted for a more autonomous profile, without state leaders, and maintained that "We can have to be in the Parliament of Galicia because it is the voice of the people and the transformative voice."

After summarizing the purple campaign as "very dizzying, but very dignified", he called the PP's policy in Galicia "disastrous, caciquil and opportunistic" and was very harsh with the "meanness" and "scoundrel" of the Xunta for announcing a salary increase for health personnel "two days before the elections."

ABASCAL, WITH DÍAZ-MELLA

In A Coruña, like Feijóo, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, was there, supporting his candidate, Álvaro Diaz-Mella, and made references to the ideological concessions that he considers the PP made to the BNG in Galicia to claim the vote for his training as the only useful way to stop nationalist policies in this community.

"If it depends on VOX, linguistic freedom and the freedom of parents to educate their children will return to Galicia and there will be no collaboration with the 2030 Agenda, which is guilty of the destruction of employment," he stated.