How to face Isabel Díaz Ayuso? It is the eternal debate that the socialists have had since the Madrid president swept the polls, establishing herself as Pedro Sánchez’s rival. It is not a new conflict, because already in the times of Esperanza Aguirre or Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, Madrid politics ended up being national, and vice versa. In the socialist ranks there are those who believe that it is a mistake that it is Pedro Sánchez who enters into the ‘hand-to-hand’ with Ayuso and that this strategy raises the profile of the Puerta del Sol tenant. But in Moncloa and in Ferraz the decision has been made: to fight Ayuso, whom they consider the leader of the right and the extreme right, from all fronts and, in the process, weaken Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who is going to slipstream of the Madrid woman and suffers a bleeding of votes on her right.
The press conference after the Council of Ministers on Tuesday exemplified this strategy, which is replicated in parliamentary debates and other interventions by members of the Government. Three ministers escorted the spokesperson, Pilar Alegría: Mónica García, Diana Morant and Óscar López. On the table, several topics with which to fight the ideological battle with the right on issues such as health or education and, incidentally, confront the Madrid president.
The first came out expressly to respond to the PP’s latest attack against the right to abortion by approving a Vox proposal that forced the municipal services of the Madrid City Council to inform women that they were going to have an abortion of an alleged syndrome without any scientific basis. The Government immediately launched an offensive, removing from the drawer the reform of the Constitution to protect this right and proposing changes in a decree to prevent misinformation in the context of voluntary interruption of pregnancy. Three days later, Sánchez sent a letter to the presidents of the Community of Madrid, Aragon, Asturias and the Balearic Islands asking them to create a registry of objectors.
A set design in Moncloa
The Minister of Health, Mónica García, presented a map of the abortion situation in Spain: four out of five women abort in private centers. There are other eloquent figures: abortions in public healthcare are only 0.47% in Madrid; 0.2% in Andalusia and 0% in Extremadura. The leader of Más Madrid only expressly cited the mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida, and Ayuso herself to issue warnings: “To Mr. Almeida and all the deniers who spread hoaxes and professional fanatics: we are not going to allow coercion nor are we going to allow disinformation to women. And to Mrs. Ayuso, very simple: the law is complied with.”
López, who was at the table to present a law on transparency for senior officials, took the opportunity to make a joke. “Not only is the abortion law violated, the housing law and the memory law are also violated in the Community of Madrid,” said the general secretary of the PSOE of Madrid. “The priority is the Government of Spain,” reflects a deputy on whether the strategy strengthens Ayuso in the region.
Then it was the turn of the Minister of Science and Universities to explain a legal modification to put a stop to university “chiringuitos” due to the Government’s concern about the proliferation of private centers compared to public ones (24 vs. 0 in the last 20 years) that have caused the student body to increase by 129% compared to 3% of the public one. Morant especially charged against the Community of Madrid, where “some of the best universities in Spain are being absolutely mistreated.” And he referred to the law promoted by Ayuso, which he defined as “a last blow from the Madrid Government”: “What is happening with the Trump administration with universities as prestigious and important as Harvard or Columbia is beginning to resonate here, in Madrid.”
“The themes coincided”
“The topics coincided. Everything was quite scheduled. Abortion, because it is current and was fair and necessary,” argued government sources about the offensive against Ayuso that contrasted with the silence – also in the journalists’ questions – about the breast cancer screening scandal in Andalusia.
That matter was mentioned a couple of hours later by the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, who was questioned by the PP in the Senate control session for having said that the railway is experiencing “the best moment in its history.” “I’m going to do an exercise about who is not living their best moment: for example, the people of Gaza, who are being exterminated with fire, and you, meanwhile, refuse to describe the events as genocide, you make fun of the flotilla. Do you know who is not living their best moment? The Madrid Metro and bus users, who have been on their way for six weeks immersed in absolute chaos, but don’t worry, all of this is going to be fixed in no time. pim, pam, pum as soon as Mrs. Ayuso finishes her Basque classes and gets to work to solve Madrid’s transportation problem.” After this comparison, he pointed out: “Do you know who is not living their best moment? Andalusian healthcare, and especially those 2,000 women, who live in suspense waiting for a diagnosis without knowing if they have cancer or not.”
Bridge and the ‘pim, pam, pum’
Puente has become one of Ayuso’s scourges due to the chaos in the Madrid Metro. But he is not the only one who attacks the regional president. And the strategy reaches Sánchez himself. “Go back to clandestine trips to London. To classism and singling out. Go back 50 years. We are not going to allow it,” the president responded through X to Ayuso’s refusal to create the register of objectors. “Go somewhere else to have an abortion,” he had blurted out minutes before in the Madrid Assembly. The Government will take the matter to the Constitutional Court.
The criticism continued from Ferraz’s headquarters, where they believe that Ayuso’s words will take their toll on part of his most focused electorate. “Where do you want them to go? To Quirón to continue with their businesses? To London like our grandmothers?” asked the spokesperson, Montserrat Mínguez, who called on Alberto Núñez Feijóo to force the Madrid president to comply with the law: “If she still orders something, she should demonstrate it and demand from the president that the laws are there to comply with. If it is a state party, they have to respect the laws.”
In Moncloa they are determined to fully exploit the contradictions of the PP and, especially, its support for Vox. And more so on an issue that is complicated for the popular ones, like abortion. “Isabel, Alberto has a letter for you,” Sánchez said ironically following the statement issued by the PP leader in which he committed to guaranteeing “that any woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy can do so with the best medical and psychological care, in accordance with the laws.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
