Neither the name of Dolors Montserrat nor that of other people who slipped into the pools during these weeks of waiting until the popular leadership appointed Alejandro Fernández have been made official. Genoa’s favorite, and the one who aroused the most enthusiasm within the party, was Manuel Reyes, mayor of Castelldefels (Barcelona).
The situation caused by the unforeseen advance of the regional elections by the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, was an obstacle to achieving a smooth transition like the one that Genoa wanted, and some also point out that Reyes was not very favorable to take a step forward with the opposition of the current president of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, to resign from the head of the party list during this appointment with the early polls.
However, the popular Catalans still have a regional congress pending, where that organic readjustment of the organization with which in Madrid they hoped to have reached the Catalan elections will be carried out, if this early call that ERC has decided to change has not summer The passage of his competitors, notably Junts and the fugitive former president Carles Puigdemont, occurred.
Dolors Montserrat
In this imminent reorganization of the party, it was not expected that Dolors Montserrat, a popular MEP, would be the new leader of the Catalan PP nor the candidate that Fernández would, as they say, oust with his resistance to the exit. Montserrat was appointed president of the campaign committee and, looking to the future, the PP is betting more on its continuity in the candidacy for the next European elections on June 9, since it also assumes that the current Deputy Secretary for Relations will be there , institutional, Esteban González Pons.
In Catalonia, Genoa opted for caution and to try to avoid an internal crisis in the middle of the pre-campaign, with the idea that the candidacy is a necessary and urgent procedure, but that what really matters are the acronyms and the capacity they must convey the message that they are the only alternative to constitutionalism.
In this electoral meeting, the PP is targeting the vote of Ciudadanos and that of Vox, but it also wants to conquer the votes of the PSC, and this is precisely one of the reasons why it was studied to incorporate another profile in the a regional leadership that would have a greater capacity to connect with the Catalan voter.
It was good for Fernández that this debate was mixed, on the part of certain sectors of the right, with the position of the party at national level in its relations with Junts and with the criticisms he made regarding the contacts that Madrid has linked up with the Puigdemont team. …when Alberto Núñez Feijóo launched his attempt at investiture negotiations. They used this to try to confuse the real subject of the organic and electoral debate and protect Alejandro Fernández in his desire to repeat himself as a candidate.
European
For the next European elections, where the parties must begin to prepare their lists, the PP hopes that the leadership will be able to sign a significant signature which will give substance to a candidacy in which the two main forces will measure themselves for the first time at the national level since the last general elections. The people expect from these elections a revalidation of the general elections of last July and an advantage for the PSOE which will have a cost on its national stability.
For the moment, Feijóo carried out yesterday an official closing of ranks with Fernández, whom he supported within the Autonomous Board of Directors of the PP of Catalonia in which he was proposed as popular candidate for the Presidency of the Generalitat. There, the leader of the PP stressed that this candidacy for the Catalan elections is “a guarantee of unity” and did not hesitate to praise Fernández, but also Montserrat, appointed president of the campaign committee, reports Efe . “If we had to choose two proper names that currently reflect the PP of Catalonia, I am very clear about them: if there is a man who faced the independence movement of Father Aragonès, it is Alejandro Fernández; And if there is one woman who faced Puigdemont’s independence movement head-on, it is Dolors Montserrat. And both are the key to constitutionalism and the fight against the independence movement.
In his speech, Feijóo called for focusing the vote on the PP as the best option to stop the “process” and the independence movement, and to solve the real problems of the people, while the PSC, the ERC and the Junts are “indistinguishable and interchangeable”. “
“Don’t let them fool us again. Voting for the CPS does not end the process, but continues it. And even if Sánchez needs the independence movement, the independence movement will govern,” he warned. And he recalled that 12 million “can change the future of Catalonia and, therefore, can decide a good part of the future of Spain.”