Feijóo gives the ‘sorpasso’ to Vox in Catalonia and fulfills its objective of being the fourth force with a jump from 3 to 15 seats
The leader of the PP has been fully involved in the 12M campaign and this result allows him to face the European elections with more strength
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has fulfilled the objectives that he had set in the Catalan elections this Sunday: to climb from eighth to fourth position in the Parliament of Catalonia and to overrule Vox. In ‘Génova’ they have not hidden their euphoria when they went from 3 to 15 deputies, a figure that means quintupling their 2021 results and facing the European elections on June 9 with greater strength.
Specifically, with 99.14% counted, the ‘popular’ have gained a dozen deputies (342,067 votes, 10.97%) being the party that is growing the most this election night. “It is fantastic news,” acknowledge Feijóo’s team, who frame this rise in the absorption of the six seats that Cs had and the “constitutionalist” vote that comes from the PSC, given that Vox maintains its 11 deputies after a campaign with “emotional” overtones.
The PP had been the last political force in the last two elections in Catalonia, both in 2021 – it achieved 3 seats, the worst result in its history – and in 2017, in which it won four deputies, with Cs then being the force that made profitable the application of article 155 of the Constitution in Catalonia.
According to sources from Feijóo’s team, the PP has recovered voters who in 2017 opted for Inés Arrimadas, then went to the PSC and now have returned to the PP again. “The PP multiplies its results by five and enters all the provinces. We are the one that increases the most, the same sources have highlighted.
Feijóo congratulated the Catalan PP and its candidate, Alejandro Fernández, for the “extraordinary” result of the party which, he said, has exceeded his “best expectations.” “Thanks to the more than 340,000 Catalans who clearly consolidate us as a constitutionalist alternative. The PP of Catalonia is back to stay,” Feijóo proclaimed on social networks, in line with the message expressed by both Fernández and the party’s campaign manager. PPC and candidate in the European elections, Dolors Montserrat.
The ‘popular’ now once again have support similar to that achieved by former minister José Piqué in 2003 – with the absolute majority of José María Aznar – and in 2006, with 14 seats, respectively, and which even reached 18 and 19 deputies in 2010 and 2012 with Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, who achieved the best mark of the party in Catalonia.
From ‘Génova’ they have admitted their satisfaction with these data, which allows them to face the European Championships on June 9 from a position of greater strength. “We came out stronger,” say Feijóo’s team, who highlight that the socialists in each electoral event “slide” and lose voters in the center.
“NO SIMPLE POSITION LEFT FOR SÁNCHEZ”
Tonight, in ‘Génova’ they did not want to talk about possible pacts, although they recalled that the PPC has not been “called to govern” Catalonia. Of course, the PP leadership has stressed that these results are not a “plus stability for the country as a whole” and “will not make life easier” for Pedro Sánchez in Madrid.
“There is no simpler position for the President of the Government,” the same sources have added, despite the fact that the PSC is the winning party of the elections with 42 seats, followed by Junts with 35 deputies.
This is what the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, has publicly stated, stating that the PSC is more dependent on the independence movement today than it was yesterday and that Sánchez’s future depends more on the independence movement today than it did yesterday. “The Government of Catalonia is not going to say it, the PSC is going to decide it, the independence movement will decide it and put a price on it,” she emphasized in an appearance at the PP headquarters.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING ON TUESDAY
Feijóo has called a meeting of the party’s steering committee this Monday to analyze the results but it will be on Tuesday when the National Executive Committee, the body that brings together the territorial ‘barons’, will do so in detail.
The leader of the PP – who arrived at the PP headquarters around 9:30 p.m., with the vote count at more than 30% – was accompanied by his hard core on the seventh floor: the general secretary of the party, Cuca Gamarra. ; the Deputy Secretary of Institutional Affairs, Esteban González Pons; and the parliamentary spokespersons in the Congress and the Senate, Miguel Tellado and Alicia García; and the general secretary of the Popular Group in the Senate, Javier Arenas, among others.
Feijóo has been fully involved in the Catalan campaign, with more than a dozen visits to the four provinces and more than twenty events in support of the PPC. The objective that Genoa set at the start of the campaign was to surpass those of Abascal and become the first “force of constitutionalism” in Catalonia, considering that the PSOE has “been erased as a state party”, in the words of the PP leader.
In the last days of the campaign they lowered expectations, seeing that Vox resisted and managed to maintain a good part of its electoral base in Catalonia. To attract Vox voters, the ‘popular’ ones toughened their speech with illegal immigration — “I ask those who do not admit that illegal immigration occupies our homes to vote” — and repeated ad nauseam the message that division of the vote “subtracts seats.”
A REVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF THE PP SINCE THE 80S
Tonight’s result multiplies by five the seats that the party won three years ago, the worst result in its history with a historic defeat (109,067 votes and 3 seats). In 2021 and 2017 the PP occupied the last position in the party table, with 3 and four deputies respectively.
Three years ago, the PP then led by Pablo Casado attributed the poor result of the PPC to the difficult situation in Catalonia, after the electoral setback in 2017 just after the application of article 155 of the Constitution that made Ciudadanos profitable. They also pointed out then that the latest statements by former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas on the occasion of the start of the trial on the party’s alleged box b did not help them in the campaign.
The result achieved by the PP this Sunday is close to the 19 seats that Alicia Sánchez-Camacho achieved in 2012, the best result of the party in this community with 471,681 votes, 12.98%, although the Catalan socialists (20 seats) and ERC (21) relegated him to fifth force in the Catalan Parliament.
Two years earlier, in 2010, Sánchez-Camacho won 18 deputies (387,066 votes and 12.34%), becoming the third force in the Catalan Parliament by surpassing the Republicans in those elections. The PP’s second best result in number of votes was achieved in the 1995 regional elections by the then president of the party in Catalonia, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who obtained 421,752 votes, 14.08%, which translated into 17 seats in Parliament. Catalan.
The results achieved tonight by the PPC are also below the support obtained in 2003 and 2006 by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Piqué, who achieved 15 minutes the first time he headed the party’s candidacy and three years later he remained in 14 deputies. In 2007, Piqué resigned after directly imposing ‘Génova’ on the party’s campaign team in Catalonia.
Before Piqué, Alberto Fernández Díaz had been the head of the PP list, which remained at 12 deputies in the 1999 elections. In the 1992 and 1988 elections the ‘popular’ had 7 and 6 seats respectively. In 1984, Alianza Popular ran in coalition with the Popular Democratic Party and the Liberal Union, achieving 221,601 votes and 11 seats in the Catalan Parliament.
