Ángel Collado
The Popular Party is on the verge of an internal crisis with the clash between the national leadership headed by Pablo Casado and Isabel Díaz Ayuso over control of the organisation in Madrid, with some precedents in the past, but no place in the present.
For almost two decades, the leaders of the PP who preside over an autonomous community have been at the same time presidents of the party in the corresponding region. It is the same model applied and followed in the case of the national executive (first with José María Aznar and then with Mariano Rajoy) and currently by the rest of the heads of regional governments in PP hands: Alberto Núñez Feijóo in Galicia, Juan Manuel Moreno in Andalusia, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco in Castilla y León and Fernando López Miras in Murcia.
Madrid is the exception to this organisational formula of the Popular Party since the resignation of Cristina Cifuentes in 2018. Mariano Rajoy turned to Pío García-Escudero, then president of the Senate, to preside over the management that still runs the regional PP while waiting for an ordinary congress to be held to elect the new leadership.
The regional elections of 4 May made it clear who was the emerging figure among the Madrid PP, with Isabel Díaz Ayuso winning an almost absolute majority after a campaign that took place on a national scale. The ‘lideresa’ knew how to make the most of Pedro Sánchez’s harassment, she liquidated the political career of Pablo Iglesias and gave the PP its first clear victory in 10 years.
Based on this success, which was also based on the unity of almost the entire centre-right vote, with the extreme right of Vox on the decline, Díaz Ayuso organised her government and parliamentary group leadership teams in the regional assembly. She also swept away the old divisions between the like-minded leaders of her predecessors (Esperanza Aguirre or Cristina Cifuentes) or those who were better seen in the old national leadership (that of Mariano Rajoy) or that of Pablo Casado. The president of the Community of Madrid already has real control of the Madrid PP and, therefore, her election as future president is guaranteed. Hence the bewilderment at Genova’s moves to put obstacles in the way of Ayuso’s plans.
The current president of the Community of Madrid was Casado’s main bet to renew the party and secure the regional government for the PP. She has more than fulfilled the task entrusted to her and aspires to have the same organisational powers in the party that Feijóo has in Galicia, absolute control without quotas for appointments decided from the national leadership.
That is all the room for discussion that Casado’s team has left in its struggle with Ayuso’s, according to veterans of the organisation who have watched the spectacle of the last few days in disbelief. It is a reproduction of the model of the permanent clash between Rajoy and Esperanza Aguirre between 2005 and 2016 with the originality that, on this occasion, as they recall, Díaz Ayuso is still a winning bet for Casado.
PP sources do not see the national leadership in a position to promote a sector of the party in Madrid willing to stop Ayuso in her plans to take over the presidency. Nor do they believe that the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, is going to risk his career to dispute the position.
For the moment, there is a truce until the National Convention scheduled for October is held, and Ayuso has found the support of the other referent of the electoral majorities of the PP. For Feijóo, “the normal thing” is that the president of the Community of Madrid wants to preside the PP of Madrid and “the surprising thing” would be the opposite.
Casado will have to decide before the end of the year whether or not he agrees to bring forward the party congress in Madrid, which Ayuso will win in any way and on any date. Also if he prefers to insist on putting obstacles to the regional aspirations of the new leader and thus give fuel to the theory that he fears that these aspirations will go further in national politics before the next general elections in late 2023 or early 2024.
