The Diplomat
The president of the PP, Pablo Casado, who has been on a tour of several Latin American countries since Tuesday, has proposed in Buenos Aires the creation of an ‘Alliance for Freedom’, made up of moderate parties, to confront the populism that the region is suffering from.
Casado made this proposal after holding a meeting on Tuesday with the head of the government of the city of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and meeting at the Club Español with the former Argentine president Mauricio Macri.
What we want,” said the opposition leader, “is to propose an ‘Alliance for Freedom’ in which Spain once again has a preponderant position, not only because of our historical, cultural and linguistic links with this region, but also because of Spain’s capacity to be the gateway to the EU for all Latin American countries.
Casado considered it “fundamental” that democracies and the principles of freedom in Latin America should be defended “in the face of what leaders and former leaders such as former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero are doing”, whom he accused of being with the Puebla Group “whitewashing the dictatorial regimes of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba”.
In the opinion of the President of the Popular Party, populism “cannot be fought with more populism, nor with more extremism, but with policies based on liberal-conservative principles”. He believes that confronting populism with radicalism “can produce a bigger fire” and trying to placate “leftist revolutions with populist policies, which promise heaven or easy solutions to complex problems, tends to exacerbate these tensions”.
And on his Twitter account he said: “I propose an Alliance for Freedom in Ibero-America that defends democracy, the rule of law, the market economy, the welfare state and security. Spain did it with González, Aznar and Rajoy, but Zapatero and Sánchez whitewash dictatorships”.
After stating in Buenos Aires that, since the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to La Moncloa, Spain’s role in Latin America has been “greatly diminished”, Pablo Casado said that with the tour he is undertaking in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile, he wants to express his party’s position “in defence of freedom”.
Casado, who did not meet with the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, nor with any member of his government, pointed out that the defence of an alliance for freedom against populism is not something he has heard from the current Argentinean government.
According to Casado, Spain has “completely” lost its presence in Latin America and should make itself more present by saying that Cuba “is a dictatorship”, “not whitewashing Maduro’s elections” and “not keeping quiet about Ortega’s atrocities in Nicaragua”.
The PP leader, who is accompanied on his tour by the Secretary for International Relations, Valentina Martínez, and the deputy spokesperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Pablo Hispán, was received yesterday, Wednesday, in Montevideo, by the President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou. He also plans to travel to Paraguay today to meet the country’s president, Mario Abdó Benítez, and on Friday to Chile to meet the Chilean president, Santiago Piñera.
Casado is maintaining an intense international activity in December, which last week took him to Greece and Cyprus.
