Madrid shakes the center-right | Spain

The open crisis in the Community of Madrid after its frustrated attempt to advance in the phases of the de-escalation, which even led to the resignation of the Director of Public Health due to disagreements with her political superiors, adds fuel to the fire that the Government has become of coalition between PP and Citizens. Sources of the popular leadership admit “concern” that these tensions, together with the pact of Inés Arrimadas and Pedro Sánchez, come to endanger the jewel in the crown of the autonomic agreements that gave Pablo Casado oxygen after the electoral debacle. Cs insists that the pact with the Government to extend the state of alarm is “punctual”, although the relationship with its partners has suffered in parallel to the contacts with the PSOE.

The PP leader again released some recorded statements attacking the Government. Since last April 20, he has not responded at a press conference to questions from journalists. This Friday, the first one would have been about the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who saw the central executive take her request to go to phase 1 of the de-escalation —with 15,000 deaths, more than 68,600 cases, almost 600 patients in the ICU and about 3,000 admitted – after the resignation of its director of Public Health for refusing to support that plan.

Ayuso was Casado’s most personal and risky bet. The PP leader chose her as a candidate for the Community of Madrid, which manages more than 20,000 million euros of budget without having previous management experience. He embodied, and this was highlighted by the PP when announcing his appointment, the “uncompromising” spirit that Casado wanted to impose on his ranks. The rest of the barons of the formation avoided criticizing it but also supporting it. They hid behind the fact that they did not know “the data” that had encouraged the Madrid president to request the pass of phase 1 of the de-escalation, the same measure proposed by other communities with popular governments and far fewer victims and infections.

In the early morning, Díaz Ayuso admitted, in Telecinco, that his decision had prevailed economic reasons, because “the medical criterion”, he said, “is always to be in the most cautious position” and then “to avoid any rebound, than staying home forever. ” Meanwhile, on TVE, the President of Castilla y León, his party colleague Alfonso Fernández Mañueco —the only community, together with Catalonia, that has given up accelerating the de-escalation— assured: “I can speak of Castilla y León and we have spoken from good sense and through dialogue, with the experts and with the opposition forces ”. Mañueco added that “the pressures” of some economic sectors cannot be “above the protection and life of the people.” “We all really want to run, but the best way to get to the finish line is to act wisely.” The Galician president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, refused to “speak by hearsay” of what happened in Madrid, but added: “If there is a policy that must be addressed from clinical criteria, it is that of health. To do otherwise would be irresponsible. “

The resignation of the Director of Health and the failed de-escalation in Madrid have hit the PP strategy squarely. The errors of the star Government of the coalition with Cs coincide with an accumulation of disagreements between the two in the Madrid Executive. On Thursday, without going any further, Cs accused the PP on Thursday of not seeking pacts with the PSOE in Madrid to advance in the reconstruction “on a whim” and called for “politicking”. The tension in Madrid coincides with the pact between Arrimadas and Sánchez and with an approach of the PSOE to Cs in the autonomous communities in which the latter shares governments with the PP – four, in addition to the City Council of the capital. “The relationship between Arrimadas and Casado is good and she has said that the agreement with the Government is punctual. In Andalusia the coalition with Cs is going very well; in Castilla y León it cost more, but now it is also going well, but it is true that the situation in Madrid is worrying ”, says a member of the PP’s national leadership. Married downplays Cs pact with Sánchez, but his number two, Teodoro García Egea declared yesterday: “I have to see if Sánchez also cheats Arrimadas. It already cheated ERC. “

Unlike Arrimadas, the Madrid crisis has fallen, unlike the PP, in a week of good prospects. His decision to support the fourth extension of the state of alarm has allowed him to regain a relevant role in Spanish politics, where for a long time, with only 10 deputies, he could not locate himself. In Cs they strive to emphasize that they have no intention of establishing any kind of stable alliance with the PSOE. The management insists that the relationship continues to be fluid with the popular ones and that Arrimadas and Casado speak frequently, although in Cs they did not like the criticism of Aznar’s foundation, FAES, which compared the pact with the fable of the scorpion and the frog. and allowed himself to play ironically with the surname of Arrimadas.

In the Cs leadership they emphatically rule out that the Madrid government can be dropped, but they have not hesitated to distance themselves from Ayuso and try a budget pact with the PSOE, promoted by the party’s regional leader and vice-president of the Community, Ignacio Aguado, with the guarantee of Arrimadas. Some sources of Cs in Madrid affirm that the PP has warned its partners that if they intend to dynamite the regional Executive, the popular ones in turn could provoke elections in other territories where they rule together and in which Cs does not have good prospects. “It is not in the interest of either of them to move a file,” say parliamentary sources.

The fire in the Government in Madrid has caused discrepancies in Cs, with different criteria in the Madrid Executive and that of Castilla y León, and with discomfort in some sectors of the party due to the performance of Aguado. “I am amazed to have to say that Torra has been more sensible,” the Castilian-Leon vice president, Francisco Igea, a doctor, said of Madrid, in words that caused a deep stir in the leadership of Cs. In the Castilian-Leonese government they believe that Madrid’s attempt to advance in the de-escalation has been reckless and they point to Aguado because “he pushed to go through the phase,” emphasizes a source from the Executive, who regrets the “uncertainty” that the crisis has caused in the Madrid population.

Arrimadas supported, on the other hand, Aguado’s decision to promote Madrid to go to phase 1. “Madrid must be misunderstood and generating economic activity, because if not, we will have a very serious social problem,” he defended in Antena 3.

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