Rueda consolidates Feijóo's leadership with a resounding victory: "Galicia has sent a message to Spain: we do not want blackmail here"

Juanma Lamet Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, February 19, 2024-00:19

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The image sums it all up. On one side of the screen, Alfonso Rueda applauds, smiling at his overwhelming victory. The other, Alberto Núñez Feijóo and his leadership give him a chorus of applause. The national PP celebrates the victory at the polls as its own because to a certain extent it is. That video call acts as the umbilical cord of two very different triumphs. While Rueda consolidates himself as a powerful baron without guardianship or long shadows, the opposition leader shores up his leadership after a campaign that was presented as a national plebiscite, and that at times was a whirlwind of uncertainties. If a week ago it seemed that the

popular party

was losing control of its well-oiled machinery, everything was channeled with lapidary finality once the polls were opened.

"Galicia has sent a message to Spain: we do not want blackmail here," proclaimed the winner of the elections in his first statement after his resounding victory. "We do not want privileges of any kind, nor to be more than others, nor less than anyone," he added, before pointing out: "We want equality, understanding, responsibility and we want dignity." And he declared: "Galicia voted for '

sentidiño

' and has made the right decision for Galicia and Spain."

This time the demographic expectations were met. The PP swept again in Galicia, with 40 seats, two more than those that marked the threshold of absolute majority. The fifth absolute majority of the

Popular Party

is a boost for Feijóo, not only because the scope of his leadership was under scrutiny, but because the PSOE has collapsed to nine deputies (five below its worst historical result) and because the The push that Vox gave him in his fiefdom was left with a meager and sterile 2.19% of the ballots, and zero seats.

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The PP achieved 47.35% of the votes, six tenths of Feijóo's last absolute majority, and 16 points above a BNG that grew by six deputies, from 19 to 25, and that devours a substantial part of the socialist electorate . Ferraz, who had tried to turn these elections into a revalidation of the PP leader, comes out with obvious bruises. Not only because of his own result and because of the punishment for the amnesty, but because his strategy of fattening the BNG in pursuit of the unity of the left became so evident that he ended up mobilizing the popular electorate more than the abstentionists of your space.

The PP clearly won in the four Galician provinces. Regarding 2020, it gave up one seat in Lugo and another in La Coruña. A victory of unavoidable forcefulness, especially because it was not always in his hand. Halfway through the campaign everything threatened to go wrong. A source from Genoa informed the press that the party studied the constitutionality of the amnesty for 24 hours, opened the door to the pardon of

Carles Puigdemont

"with conditions" and considered it very difficult for him to be convicted of terrorism. The publication in all the major media of this triple news completely shook the national strategy of the PP. Nerves and tension surfaced almost until the campaign closing rally. Only last Friday did the popular ones begin to breathe, seeing the majority more or less tied up. But they never trusted each other, after the lesson learned in the general elections of 23-J. Prudence outweighed the polls.

In the PPdeG they repeated throughout the campaign that the majority was not in danger. And they endorsed an accurate phrase by

Emilia Pardo Bazán

: "You can't catch a Galician with an air hook." Then the spears turned into reeds when the ballot boxes were opened, and halfway through the count the first cans of beer began to be opened on the main floor of Genoa. Galician, of course.

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The general secretary of the PP,

Cuca Gamarra

, summarized the euphoria of the Feijóo team in an appearance before the media: «Spain had a lot at stake in Galicia and the Galicians have known how to respond with the highest participation and sending a very clear message: that between walls and bridges, they have chosen bridges, and between division and union, they have chosen union. And "stability" versus "multipartyism."

Feijóo's number

two

directed her darts at Ferraz: «The PSOE must make a deep reflection. Sánchez has abandoned his principles and his acronyms, and even that of his own candidate to feed the independence movement. His only objective was for the PP not to win, and the result is the worst for the PSOE in its history. "It doesn't reach double digits." "There is no longer PSOE and the only thing left is Sánchez."

The other pending account that the popular people settled was that of Santiago Abascal. Another source from Genoa boasted that "the brave right is extra-parliamentary" in Galicia, in reference to Vox. That was the favorable - and supportive - square of the national political circle.