Puig Campana is an imposing rock massif almost 1,500 meters high, located eight kilometers from the beaches of Benidorm. Very tough races of the so-called Vertical Kilometer (KV) are held here, with a route of 3,600 meters that overcomes a positive difference in altitude of 1,020 metres. On the slopes of that mountain, very close to the start of the race, lives Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca, the most wanted man in the Valencian Cortes and in Valencian politics since the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, presented his resignation last Monday.
Not only because he is its spokesperson (ombudsman) parliamentarian of the PP in Les Corts and general secretary of the PPCV, positions to which he arrived at the hands of the head of the Consell, but because his name is the one that rings the loudest as his possible replacement to finish the legislature with the necessary support of Vox’s votes and without calling early elections in March. Furthermore, on Wednesday, the investigating judge of the criminal proceedings against the Dana, Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, summoned him as a witness for the two telephone calls he had with Mazón on October 29, on the afternoon of the Dana, and for the three conversations with the then Minister of the Interior, Salomé Pradas.
Since Monday, the pilgrimage of journalists to the Valencian Parliament has been daily, always with the same response from the PP, even last Tuesday when a meeting of spokespersons took place: Juanfran (as he is colloquially called) “did not come today”, “he is not here”, or “Juanfran had a job” at the Finestrat town hall. There will be no more plenary sessions until the investiture session when the resignation process of the head of the Council will be activated. November 19th is the last day to present candidates for the presidency of the Generalitat.
Pérez Llorca has not made any public statement or statement, despite being the subject of attention in Valencian politics. Confined to his public silence, he lives his life in his city, with a sporadic visit to the city of Alicante. This Thursday morning he “dispatched” in the seat of the mayor of the Consistory of the tourist municipality of Alicante, which has more than 9,000 inhabitants and has led with the absolute majority (11 councilors from the PP; two, from the PSPV-PSOE) since 2015. He is more faithful than ever to the discretion with which he has evolved in politics and in the PP.
“You have to be careful,” was his brief response this Thursday to questions about the replacement process sent by this newspaper. And regarding his summons to the Catarroja court (along with other members of Mazón’s hard core), he added: “Respect the work of justice and when a date is set to testify, without problems. At the disposal of your honor.” Last Friday, before the publication of the information, anticipated by eldiario.esthat the first meeting between Vox and the PP for negotiations is scheduled for today, he told this newspaper that this is “not confirmed”. “They are on my City Council,” he added.
On his send on the works of the elevator that will reach the vertical town hall castle, both on November 4th. There is no reference to Mazón in the last 10 days, nor to the state funeral in which he suffered the disapproval of the dana victims who booed and railed at him, which precipitated his decision to resign. His last message to the president of the PPCV is dated October 26th and is a retweet of one of the interviews that the president of the Consell gave on the anniversary of the floods that killed 229 people. Nor is much of it lavished on Elon Musk’s network.
Pérez Llorca is the only one of the three names that have emerged as possible replacements for Mazón who has not made any public statements. The president of the delegation, Vicent Mompó, did not shy away from the media last Tuesday and underlined that there was no “rush, or something like that”, to succeed Mazón as president of the Generalitat. Now he couldn’t be, because he is not a regional deputy, but he was proposed by the provincial leaders of the PP (himself included) and by Pérez Llorca himself as a candidate for the party’s presidency, the first step towards presenting himself as the head of the list in the next regional elections. The mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, who is a deputy, also referred to the ongoing process to distinguish herself as a possible candidate to replace Mazón and reiterated that she is focused on her municipal work.
Meanwhile, Vox’s parliamentary spokesperson, José María Llanos, does not hide his good relations with Pérez Llorca, with whom he negotiated the Budgets, among other parliamentary initiatives. Llanos insisted on Wednesday that what is important is not the names, but the program and policies. Now, “Juanfran” “likes him a lot”, he added, and logically he has more relations than with Catalá, because he is not part of the City Council.
The socialist spokesperson in Finestrat, the lawyer Juan Algado, considers Pérez Llorca, whom he has known since childhood and with whom he has a good relationship, as a “serious politician and professional negotiator”. And he claims that if he now opts for the interim presidency he will have to have guarantees that he will also be able to run in the next elections.
“Tarnished” by Mazón, says the opposition
The parliamentary spokesperson of the PSPV-PSOE, José Muñoz, has a very different opinion. He believes that Pérez Llorca is “tainted” as he is the number two of the current interim president of the Consell. This Thursday he underlined that “the first appearance before the Valencian public opinion” of the leader Llorca “will not take place in that hypothetical debate on the investiture, but in a statement before the judge of Catarroja”.
From Compromís, MP Paula Espinosa assured that it would be “a little strange that the same person who should have warned Mazón of what was happening, because he seemed to know nothing, is now president of the Generalitat.” He added that the members of the “hard core” of the president They were also “responsible” on October 29, 2024 and for this reason “justice sends them to testify”.
