White smoke. Four months after the regional elections held last December 21, the Popular Party and Vox have reached an agreement to govern Extremadura in coalition and to invest María Guardiola as president. After a long and arduous negotiation, both parties have agreed that Vox will enter the regional government with a vice presidency, which will be assumed by the far-right candidate, Óscar Fernández Calle, and two ministries: Family, Deregulation and Social Services, which Fernández Calle will also lead; and Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Environment. The PP candidate, María Guardiola, will be invested for the second time as president of Extremadura with the support of Santiago Abascal’s party. This will take place next Tuesday and Wednesday, and she will take office on Friday, six months after the dissolution of the Extremadura parliament for the early election. The pact to invest Guardiola also foresees the approval of four Budgets.
“We have finally reached an agreement. An agreement that Extremadura society has been waiting for. We are very satisfied with it,” Guardiola celebrated in a press conference in Mérida this afternoon past eight, accompanied by her next vice president, the Vox candidate, Óscar Fernández Calle, as well as the secretary general of the Extremadura PP, Abel Bautista, and Vox leader Ángel Pelayo Gordillo. “After a lot of work, we had a single goal: to achieve this agreement among those of us who represent 60% of the parliamentary spectrum. It is an agreement that includes 74 measures and will allow Extremadura to continue progressing. Today it is shown that democracy wins over tension, and dialogue over noise,” emphasized the acting president.
Almost at the same time, from Granada, at an Andalusian pre-campaign event, Santiago Abascal celebrated the understanding. “I want to give you very good news. And the good news is that in Extremadura there will be a Government, that this very afternoon an agreement has been reached,” began the Vox leader. “And I want to congratulate our candidate, first of all, Óscar Fernández, but I also want to congratulate Mrs. María Guardiola, from the Popular Party, because despite the political confrontation and the many differences, we have managed to reach an agreement,” added Abascal. Thanks to the pact, they will guarantee that Extremadura, the far-right president pointed out, “not a single olive tree will be uprooted”; “there will be priority for Spaniards in access to social aid and social housing”; “the first tax brackets” will have “the lowest taxes” and there will be an Executive that “will defend the countryside and industry against absolutely suicidal and traitorous pacts, such as Mercosur.” The Vox leader explained what the Deregulation vice presidency that Fernández will hold is about: “He will be in charge of starting to undo laws, regulations and requirements that have turned ranchers, farmers and self-employed people into office workers who have to spend all day doing paperwork instead of dedicating themselves to their work.” Both Abascal and his group are “happy,” but not “completely satisfied.” “We have a much greater ambition,” he concluded.
The agreement sealed between the Popular Party and Vox culminated after a complicated negotiation in which the two national executives also participated. And despite the fierce and recent attacks from Abascal’s party against Génova, whom they even accused of being “smugglers of ria.” Even with the public disputes on the table, the pact was finally forged in Extremadura, but it is still pending in Aragón and Castilla y León. Génova also celebrated the agreement in a brief statement released this afternoon emphasizing that “President Guardiola had full autonomy to negotiate the configuration of her Executive.” “The number of positions and the names of the people who will occupy them were never a matter of negotiation by the negotiators of the National Directorate of the Popular Party. They will also not participate in these matters in the other ongoing negotiations in Aragón and Castilla y León,” sources from the leadership say. Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s leadership says it is “very satisfied to have helped unblock a situation that two months ago pointed towards new elections and that has now crystallized into a Government agreement for four years.” And it anticipates that the Aragón pact is imminent. “In recent days we have made significant progress in negotiations in Aragón, where we are optimistic and where we hope to reach an equally satisfactory agreement in the coming days,” the PP statement concludes.
.
The closing of the pact also comes more than a month after the ultras twice blocked the investiture of the Popular Party candidate. Guardiola even left the debate in tears and received hugs from regional officials who came to the Extremadura Assembly to support her. Days before that plenary session, Feijóo made a shift in the strategy he had followed until then with his barons and decided that Génova would directly participate in the negotiations. Hence, the PP secretary general, Miguel Tellado, and the PP chief of staff, Marta Varela, have participated in the latest meetings between the two formations.
The national leadership decided to take part in the talks after the obstacles Guardiola had in dealing with Abascal’s group, with whom she had not maintained a cordial relationship until then. But not even with Génova involved could they avoid the failure of the first and second investiture attempts of the PP candidate. The Popular Party executive simultaneously prepared a framework document to serve as a national guide for its regional presidents to design their own pacts, relegating territorial matters to the discretion of their barons. And also leaving them the power to accept or reject coalitions with Vox, as well as the possible distribution of portfolios.
Throughout these weeks of negotiations on regional governments, Feijóo and Abascal have held two conversations. The second and last, after the Castilla y León elections on March 15. Both leaders spoke to steer the situation once Guardiola’s investiture was blocked and after the Castilla y León elections, where the ultras did not reach their expectations of 20% but continued their rise. In Extremadura, the first step was taken by Guardiola in early January, when she challenged the ultras and invited them to join her government. And Abascal’s group responded by doubling the bet, asking for a vice presidency and several seats in the Executive. Since then, the tug-of-war has continued. Until today.
Read more Checkmate to LIV Golf: the Saudi Sovereign Fund is considering withdrawing funding from the League
