Isabel Díaz Ayuso always wins. This is, at this point, the main constant of the internal politics of the Popular Party. Her latest victory – the fight against the state attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, finally convicted and forced from office – not only expands her figure within the PP, but also consolidates her as a leader who dictates the pace, much of the discourse and agenda of the main opposition party. In a PP in permanent equilibrium, the president of the Community of Madrid advances without visible counterweights.
As already happened in the war against Pablo Casado – the most dramatic episode of popular domestic politics of the last decade – Ayuso emerges increasingly strengthened by all the clashes that she herself transforms into battle. Then it was the clash that decapitated the PP leader and precipitated the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Today the antagonist was García Ortiz, an attorney general whose judicial conviction gave Ayuso a symbolic, high-voltage political victory.
A victory that strengthens the PP inside and out. The external conflicts – with the public prosecutor, or with Pedro Sánchez, of whom he is the main antagonist, or against Vox – not only serve to strengthen himself in the eyes of his electorate, but also to project the rise of the right and the PP. Although in this case it is a double-edged sword, because Ayuso’s projection and autonomous power raise doubts even among the popular ones.
Génova took advantage of the prosecutor’s fall as well as his own success, to the point of giving him an advantage for the blow he dealt to Pedro Sánchez. Alberto Núñez Feijóo took advantage of the government’s setback to once again call for the president’s resignation and call elections. The PP leader supported Ayuso’s arguments that García Ortiz agreed to “be a pawn in the political strategy of the Executive” and “participated in a political operation against the PP, in particular against the president of an autonomous community,” he said without naming Ayuso.
That detail of not mentioning her by name, nor giving her particular prominence, was two-way. Nor did she mention Feijóo when she appeared in response to the Supreme Court conviction. Ayuso talked about when Spaniards will vote again, but never mentioned that they will do so for Feijóo. Either he took it for granted or he ignored it.
The Madrid PP claims that the victory against the attorney general “belongs to all democrats, including Feijóo”, but some leaders outside the Madrid organization believe that Ayuso’s PP “could use it to intimidate the already not very bold Feijóo”, in the sense of imposing its line on the PP.
What is clear is that the prosecutor’s case has strengthened the confrontation between Ayuso and Pedro Sánchez. The question is how this fight will affect Feijóo, who is the one who should lead the opposition to the prime minister. “Actually this is a victory for the entire PP, because it hurts Sánchez more than it benefits Ayuso. He won, but he also lost a lot in this whole defense of his boyfriend. What happens when his partner is convicted of tax fraud?” asks a popular leader, who warns Ayuso that “she has the second part of the party left.”
The president of Madrid does not receive great praise in the PP for having managed to collect the piece from the general prosecutor’s office. “I don’t think this benefits the PP, it hurts Spain,” says a popular baron. Ayuso is recognized in other popular territories as one of the few to have won votes for Vox, because Abascal voters want strong leaders, but her strategy is not supported either. “Leading means making decisions and being resolute in battles,” says this baron, “but not fighting all the battles, as you do.”
Ayuso has his political weight in the PP. The president of Madrid has achieved something unusual in national politics: generating her own ecosystem within the PP, with a discourse, a low and recognizable leadership, and making it compatible with the party’s strategy… except when it is not.
And in those moments it is she who ends up prevailing. It happened recently, with the registration of abortion objectors. After a month of tensions between Sol and Génova, Ayuso won the internal game, forcing the PP leadership to change its position and protect her. Génova ended up supporting Ayuso in her decision to violate the legal provision that obliges her to create a register of doctors who oppose abortion, even though, in doing so, she admits that a regional president is refusing to respect a state law.
Why does Ayuso always win? “She is a communicative monster, she has Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, who is also a good communicator, and the apparatus of the Community of Madrid, which has a lot of power,” plays a veteran. Rivals “are afraid of him, and this generates anxiety and haste, and they make mistakes,” he says.
Feijóo knows this too and has learned from the mistakes of his predecessor, Pablo Casado. Then avoid the crash. “Feijóo was more intelligent than Casado and did not enter into combat with her. It seems that there is a tacit non-aggression agreement between the two”, they estimate in the PP.
Almost all the party presidents have had dealings with the powerful Madrid organisation, which has the advantage of being a national spokesperson acting in the capital. The novelty compared to the other stages is that Feijóo coexists with the strong leadership of Ayuso while he is shaken by the rise of his right-wing rival, Vox, catapulted to almost 20% of the votes, according to the latest CIS barometer. “This had already happened between Rajoy and Esperanza, but they were different times,” recalls another territorial leader of the PP. “Genoa were stronger then. Today…we’ll see.”
