The Popular Party and Vox have reached a government pact in Aragon to invest the popular candidate and acting president, Jorge Azcón, according to sources familiar with the conversations. The agreement will be detailed at 5:30 p.m. at the Aljafería Palace, headquarters of the Cortes de Aragón, by Azcón himself and by the leader of Aragonese Vox, Alejandro Nolasco. The text sealed between both formations follows the ideological line of the document signed just a few days ago by the same parties in Extremadura and incorporates the principle of “national priority,” regardless of the measures adopted regarding the particularities of each territory. It will be the second time that the PP baron is designated as head of the Aragonese Executive with the support of the far-right formation after the first pact of 2023.
On that occasion, the definitive understanding between PP and Vox in Aragon comes just after Genoa rejected Vox’s motion on the principle of “national priority” in Congress. And two and a half months after the regional elections, held on February 8, in which the popular party achieved a simple majority victory of 26 seats —two fewer deputies than in 2023—, while the far-right doubled their result, climbing to 14 seats —7 more than in 2023—.
The Aljafería Palace, headquarters of the Cortes de Aragón in Zaragoza, is occupied this Wednesday by operators and workers who are finalizing preparations for the institutional celebration of the community’s big day, San Jorge. In Aragon, where the pact had been very advanced for days, several meetings have taken place between both parties, but the agreement has not materialized until this Wednesday, the day before the great Aragonese festivity. In the negotiation, in addition to the territorial leaders of each party, representatives of the national leadership of the PP participated: Miguel Tellado, general secretary, and Marta Varela, chief of staff of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. And from the Vox executive. It was only a matter of the agreement in Extremadura being finalized for the Aragonese text to be closed as another piece of the electoral domino. And it was announced just a couple of hours after the Extremaduran baroness, María Guardiola, was invested in Mérida.
“More strength”
“Here we have more strength than in Extremadura, here the result was better, therefore, our position here is one of greater strength,” said Alejandro Nolasco, leader of Vox in Aragon, on Monday. “We have more strength because we have a higher percentage of votes. Our weight must be proportional to what we have achieved,” Nolasco added, referring to the 17.88% of votes obtained in the Aragonese polls. In Extremadura, the percentage remained at 16.9% and the PP gained one seat instead of losing two, as in Aragon.
The territorial negotiators of PP and Vox have intensified meetings in recent days to sign the document today. “Much progress has been made in recent days,” said popular leader Mar Vaquero, acting vice president and pact negotiator, in a press conference at noon this Wednesday, in which she announced the approval of an appeal to the Supreme Court against the massive regularization of immigrants by La Moncloa.
During her speech, the acting vice president maintained that “public services” such as “healthcare” are “strained” by the arrival of immigrants. “Indeed, we believe that with this uncontrolled, self-serving, and politically motivated regularization, our public services are being strained, and this is detrimental to Aragonese citizens, especially healthcare, because it is being done without any control or budgetary allocation,” Vaquero alleged. However, the popular leader guaranteed that the state law will always be complied with, even if they do not agree.
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