Feijóo wants to resolve his congresses in Navarra, Rioja and Asturias in a month to have the PP ready before the regional

'Génova' invokes the spirit of Aznar in 1995 and Rajoy in 2011 to turn the municipal and regional elections into a springboard for Moncloa

MADRID, 25 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The leadership of the PP wants to have its congresses in Navarra, La Rioja and Asturias resolved before the end of October in order to have a ready and greased PP before the regional and municipal elections on May 28, an appointment that the 'popular' see as key because it can become a springboard to La Moncloa, following in the footsteps of José María Aznar in 1995 and Mariano Rajoy in 2011.

The leadership of the PP intends that they be congresses of unity and with consensus candidacies to row all together before the appointments with the polls that are coming next year. Following that roadmap, 'Genoa' has preferred to delay the date of these conclaves a little more because the objective is to find the "best candidate" and "get it right", according to Europa Press sources from the training.

Feijóo is looking for "winning candidates" for the May elections, aware that if Spain is dyed blue, the road will be easier to reach Moncloa in the general elections, scheduled for the end of 2023 if Sánchez does not opt ​​for the electoral advance.

In Feijóo's team they consider that the political cycle is now similar to the one that Aznar and Rajoy experienced before arriving in Moncloa, with a PSOE in decline and a PP in ascending line. In the municipal and regional elections of May 28, 1995, Aznar's PP won ten autonomies (five of them with an absolute majority) and was the most voted list in 42 of the 50 provincial capitals, results that helped him in his race to Moncloa the following year, unseating Felipe González after 14 years of socialist government.

A similar situation was repeated with Rajoy in the regional and municipal elections of May 22, 2011, where the PP reaped a large victory, even snatching from the socialists two of their historical fiefdoms: Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura. That triumph also extended to the municipal level with key places like Seville. A few months later, on November 20, 2022, the PP achieved a historic majority of 186 deputies, above the 183 obtained by Aznar in 2000.

Feijóo, who opened his tour of Spain before the summer, wants to resolve the pending congresses in the coming weeks so that the party can work in unison in the elections on May 28. Leaving aside autonomies such as the Basque Country or Catalonia --which do not hold regional elections in 2023--, the PP only has three communities without holding their regional congresses to launch their candidates: Navarra, La Rioja and Asturias

In the Autonomous Community, the PP concurred in the last elections on the Navarra Suma platform, together with the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) and Ciudadanos. With the virtual disappearance of the orange formation, the 'popular' must decide if they are going to reissue their pact with the party led by Javier Esparza.

Of course, in the PP they believe that in this negotiation "the acronym of the Popular Party must be valued" because Feijóo is on the rise as all the polls show and the formation must have a similar weight to UPN, add 'popular' sources.

In this context, the sources consulted advance that Feijóo and Esparza will hold a meeting in the coming weeks to confirm whether or not they reissue their pact. They endorsed it from 1991 until the rupture of 2008, which put an end to 17 years of agreements, although in the general elections of 2011 UPN and PP returned to compete together.

After Ana Beltrán, current president of the Navarrese PP and 'number three' of the PP with Pablo Casado, has confirmed that she will not stand for re-election, the two Navarrese who appear best placed to take the reins of the party in Navarra are: Senator Amelia Salanueva and the regional deputy Javier García.

In La Rioja they also still have no date for their congress, waiting to find a candidate who gathers the maximum consensus. The deputy and former delegate of the Government Alberto Bretón, and the deputy and former Minister of the Treasury Alfonso Domínguez, have expressed their desire to present themselves to the conclave that will elect the successor of José Ignacio Ceniceros.

Although in recent months Cuca Gamarra, current general secretary of the PP, has appeared in all the pools to take over the reins of the party, sources from Feijóo's team confirm to Europa Press that her role is in Madrid, next to the national president.

Of course, they admit that the opinion of Gamarra, who was mayor of Logroño for eight years, will be relevant in the search for a consensus candidate who manages to evict the socialist Concha Andreu from the regional government.

In the case of Asturias, the former president of Hunosa Teresa Mallada was the candidate chosen in January 2019 by the then president of the PP, Pablo Casado, as head of the regional elections. However, so far she has not received confirmation from Feijóo's team.

A little over two weeks ago, Mallada herself vindicated herself in her positions, affirming that she felt supported and recalling that she is also a member of the National Executive Committee. "I can't feel more supported," she told the media in Pravia, where she refused to talk about the PP's candidacy for the next regional elections, alleging that she is "a little far away."