Two days after Carlos Mazón’s resignation from the position of president of the Valencian Generalitat, the PP still does not have a candidate to succeed him. The situation is unprecedented in the PP: when Francisco Camps resigned as president of the Generalitat in 2011 due to his accusations in that case, the PP took just three hours to elect his replacement.
The Regional Administrative Council – which did not even meet – appointed Alberto Fabra, who was placed at the head of both the autonomous government and the Valencian PP, stamping out the speculation in one fell swoop. Now Génova has opted for indefinition while waiting to know Vox’s preferences, because unlike 2011, when the PP enjoyed an absolute majority, it needs the support of the ultras. Even if the scenario is different, the leaders of the Valencian PP fear that this vacuum will trigger an internal war within the party. The skein became even more tangled under pressure from Vox, because Santiago Abascal underlined his support and warned Génova that he will demand the adoption of his policies.
Some sectors of the PP admit to being surprised by the image of weakness that the party conveys to Vox by not choosing its candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, waiting for the negotiations to progress. Popular leaders regret that, with Mazón’s resignation, the PP has not only handed over “to its opponent, the PSOE, a leader like that of the president of an autonomous community”, but now leaves “another opponent, in this case Vox, to decide on his replacement”. The PP’s problem is that it depends on the votes of the far right to invest in something new presidentbut popular voices believe that nothing would happen if negotiations were started with a PP candidate on the table.
The fear of the leaders of the Valencian PP is that this vacuum could trigger an internal war within the party. Most of the sources consulted believe that the most suitable person for an interim replacement is Juanfran Pérez Llorca, spokesperson of the Cortes and general secretary of the PP of the Valencian Community, especially because Catalá, according to what they say in the PP, does not want it. Pérez Llorca was summoned this Wednesday by the judge of Dana to testify as a witness in the case because he had three conversations on the afternoon of the flood with the former councilor who directed the emergency Salomé Pradas.
But the presumed election of Pérez Llorca, which Génova has not confirmed, would leave important questions unanswered. Above all, it concerns the candidacy for the next regional elections, whether they will be held next March, if the agreement with Vox fails, or later, in 2027. Because Pérez Llorca is gathering support as president provisional, but if it comes to choosing the protagonist, the situation changes and the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, who is also Genoa’s favorite, seems to be in the best position.
And for that candidacy, the sources consulted warn, many others would appear. friends. One of the candidates is the president of the Provincial Council of Valencia, Vicente Mompó, who has gathered the support of the provincial leadership of the party to be the protagonist in the event of elections in a meeting on Friday before Mazón’s resignation which still baffles many in the PP.
There could be more: Pérez Llorca himself, than if he had filled the role president transitory could harbor aspirations to repeat itself. In addition to former president Francisco Camps, who has already entered the succession arena. “Dwarfs grow up in the circus,” they complain in the PP.
And the same thing happens with the presidency of the party, because not even Génova has closed the organic melon and for now Mazón remains president. The internal plot has been glimpsed in recent days with the statements of some protagonists to the press. The president of the Valencian Provincial Council sent a message to Genoa saying that the PP candidate “will be chosen by the Valencians”, and that he is sure that the national leadership, which has the final decision, “will listen to what the Valencians want”. Meanwhile, the mayor of Valencia has ruled himself out as Mazón’s successor as president. “I am and will continue to be mayor as long as Valencians want it,” he said Wednesday.
Parallel to the problem of the successor, Génova must untangle the knot of a complicated agreement with Vox. If the PP leadership had hopes of a quick and simple negotiation to invest in a new president In the Valencian Community, Santiago Abascal was tasked with putting an end to this situation. The Vox leader intervened to remind the PP that it is his party that has the upper hand and that it will make supporting Mazón’s replacement more expensive.
Abascal conditions his support for the PP on the assumption of its policies, especially in the rejection of the European Green Pact and irregular immigration, and warned that it will be “much more firm and demanding” than what has been done so far, he said in The avant-garde. The People’s Party, who wanted to avoid the signing of a new investiture pact, fear that Vox’s demands are unsustainable, even if for the moment the thesis that there will be an agreement prevails within the party.
In the PP they believe that Vox must carefully calibrate the possibility of going to elections, because this would mean “throwing a coin in the air”, and the right runs the risk of losing power in the Generalitat. Popular ones argue that the far right could be perceived as opening the door to the left if this happened.
On the other hand, Abascal claims that he is not afraid of going to elections and that he fears “disappointing” his voters. “In an election you can win or lose and we take it on with absolute sportsmanship,” the Vox leader reasoned yesterday, in a veiled threat to the PP. And he concluded: “What we could not presume is to become defrauders of those voters who had faith in us.”
