“It is necessary that the political conflict, legitimate, but sometimes thunderous, does not prevent us from hearing an even more clamorous demand: a demand for serenity.” Thus, in his traditional Christmas message from Felipe VI to politicians, he demanded a reduction in the level of polarization. The head of state warned that the “prosperity” of the people is at stake because of the noise and the citizen disaffection it generates. The PP has established itself as the main defender of the head of state’s speech, although the steps that Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s leadership is taking go in the opposite direction to the monarch’s mandate.
The first clue was given this Thursday by the PP Deputy Secretary of Health and Education, Ester Muñoz, who anticipated what the opposition’s strategy will be next year. “If 2024 has been bad for Pedro Sánchez, 2025 is going to be worse,” he said at a press conference at the party’s national headquarters. Minutes before, he placed a very high value on the king’s speech: “He represented us all with a speech in which he established himself as the spokesperson for all Spaniards.”
The leader was chosen to attend to the media at the national headquarters. A responsibility that usually falls on the spokesperson. Although Borja Sémper was in the building at number 13, Calle de Génova, Madrid, and attended the Steering Committee meeting that same afternoon, it was Muñoz who offered the press conference.
From both teams they downplay the importance and value of the movements of recent weeks and assure that “there is nothing” or call the questions about the future of both of them “speculation.”
The Leonese leader explained that her premonition about the year that awaits the President of the Government is based on the certainty that her “environment” will be subjected to “oral trials.” His wife, his brother and the State Attorney General have open cases in court that the PP maintains will end up directly affecting Pedro Sánchez.
2025, “between courts and Waterloo”
Feijóo trusts, in fact, that the judges will be the ones to finish overthrowing the President of the Government. And this was reiterated in public this Friday by the leader of the PP himself in his assessment of 2024, when he predicted for Sánchez a 2025 “between courts, Waterloo and something from Franco.”
“Half of the government is involved in judicial cases, other half is not even known to exist. The president’s immediate family, what to say. “What wouldn’t he himself say if someone else governed,” Feijóo said on Friday.
All this, while the PP leadership embarks on a path of political normalization of Junts. At the national headquarters of the Popular Party, they publicly defend their pacts with Junts, which has become a “coherent” party, and with the PNV, despite the obvious disagreements between their leaderships. The reason is in mathematics and was assumed by Feijóo in his 2024 closing: “If we do not have the votes of Vox, Junts or PNV, it is not possible to win votes in Congress.”
All, despite the internal acrimony that it causes in the most extreme wing of the PP, with Isabel Díaz Ayuso at the helm. To those who criticize the approach, Feijóo snapped: “Discussing whether we maintain the principles when by maintaining the principles we have remained in the opposition is a dialectical game.” Of course, the leader of the PP ignored his own negotiation with Junts in 2023 and what they offered them.
Despite playing with the idea of an electoral call in 2025 due to judicial pressure, in Genoa they believe that Sánchez’s parliamentary partners do not have it in mind to let it drop, at least for the moment. And with that idea in mind, the future strategy is being designed.
Elías Bendodo, the former general coordinator demoted to autonomous deputy secretary, anticipated this many weeks ago in a closed-door meeting with provincial and local officials of his party before whom he acknowledged that it is most likely that Sánchez will be able to approve the State Budget for 2025. If that happens, it will be very difficult for the Government to fall for political reasons.
Another thing is the judicial aspect. And Feijóo is betting on that bet with his chances of reaching Moncloa before 2027. And to delve into a harsh speech against the Government, Feijóo has chosen in recent weeks to move the bench of his leadership. A decision whose main victim is the party’s current spokesperson, Borja Sémper, whose media space has been occupied by Ester Muñoz herself.
Sémper has served as national spokesperson for the PP since his signing in January 2023. He is the face at the usual Monday press conferences, after the meetings of the Steering Committee. He has also been the constant subject of interviews on both radio and television.
Feijóo incorporated him shortly before completing a year at the head of the PP with the declared objective of delving into the moderation of his project. The leader of the PP highlighted his “serenity”, a word chosen by the king last Christmas Eve. Despite his previous career as leader of the opposition in Galicia, Feijóo arrived in Madrid with the reputation of a good manager and the declared purpose of not falling into verbal excesses. I come to beat Sánchez, not to insult him, he said solemnly. It was that time when he tried to distance himself from what his predecessor, Pablo Casado, had done. The signing of Sémper abounded in that strategy.
But the resolutions did not last long and especially after the trauma of the elections of July 23, 2023, Feijóo exhibits a fierce speech every time he refers to the Government. Already in that campaign, the leader of the PP came to question the integrity of the Spanish electoral system. Led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the PP encouraged conspiracies against the INE, Indra or Correos, fundamental institutions for the development of the elections.
The defeat by four votes in his investiture attempt blurred the little moderation that his opposition speech had exhibited. Feijóo remodeled its leadership to include more women in the management body and expand territorial representation. Among those chosen, Ester Muñoz.
Muñoz’s media presence has been growing, but this past fall she took a qualitative leap beyond the powers of the portfolios assigned to her as sectoral deputy secretary. Her first big opportunity came on November 20, when she was chosen to respond from the Congress rostrum to the then third vice president, Teresa Ribera, on behalf of the management of the DANA of Valencia.
Muñoz was liked, and very much, among his people. The leader left some phrases for the annals of parliamentarism, such as when she wished Ribera “luck” in court, whom she accused of “fraud” for not having assumed command of the management of the floods that caused at least 227 deaths, while exempting the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, from responsibility.
The Valencia tragedy also seems to have marked a before and after in the erratic communication and discourse policy of Feijóo’s PP. Since that fateful October 29, Sémper has only offered one press conference in Genoa. It was on November 11 and in it he avoided making a closed and express defense of Mazón that was later ratified by the leadership of the PP. A day before, the deputy economic secretary, Juan Bravo, had done so, who said: “We are with President Mazón.”
That Tuesday Feijóo himself took the reins of communication, who freed Mazón from all responsibility in the management of DANA. An idea that he still maintains and continues to propagate. In fact, for the leader of the PP, the responsibility lies with the president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, not with the president of the Valencian Generalitat.
Feijóo has chosen in recent weeks to shake up his leadership in search of a change of faces and discourse. It has given more presence to Muñoz and Bravo, in addition to the general secretary, Cuca Gamarra. His right-hand man in Congress, Miguel Tellado, scourge of the Government and everything that sounds left-wing, has also assumed much more prominence. This December, Sémper himself starred in an unusual informative breakfast with the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, as master of ceremonies. The event was attended as a guest by the former leader of Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera, and the former vice mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís.
Tellado, Gamarra and Muñoz assume a harsher speech than other leaders, much more than Borja Sémper. The current national spokesperson has had some scuffles in the past with the most extreme wing of the PP, such as Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, and is usually the subject of criticism in the media financed by the Community of Madrid of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Also in Vox they often attack Sémper, who already criticized Pablo Casado in 2020 for assimilating his speech to that of the extreme right. In 2023 the phrase of the “red lines” in the regional governments was his, precisely due to Mazón’s negotiations with Vox. The Valencian leader rushed to close the first coalition agreement with Santiago Abascal’s party. The rest arrived in a cascade. With the governments in place, Sémper was also very critical of the censorship exercised and justified by the extreme right against plays, concerts or films.
In this context, a recent meeting in a Madrid restaurant between some of the PP and Vox leaders becomes relevant. The meeting, brought forward by ‘Article 14’, was attended by Miguel Tellado and Ester Muñoz, as well as the president of the PP Reformismo 21 foundation, Pablo Vázquez. On the part of Vox, Abascal’s right-hand man, Kiko Méndez Monasterio, José María Figaredo and Jorge Martín Frías, director of the Vox Disenso foundation.
The presence of Muñoz alongside Tellado, Feijóo’s trusted man for a decade, is a message that has resonated among senior and middle officials of the PP.
This same week, Sémper gave an interview to the magazine ‘Mujer Hoy’. Asked if the time has come to “take stock,” the PP spokesperson responds: “Yes, we will have to put on the handbrake and reflect a little on what we have experienced and what needs to be done. It is probably time to make a retrospective assessment, but above all an analysis of what to do in the future.” Sémper says he wants a “serene” future. And he ditches: “Current politics has the virtue of pushing you to places you don’t want to be, to debates and tones in which you don’t recognize yourself.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
