SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, 1 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS)
Lugo, A Coruña and Santiago have been the cities chosen by the candidates of the three main Galician political parties to kick off the electoral campaign on the occasion of the regional elections on February 18.
The president of the Xunta and PPdeG candidate for re-election, Alfonso Rueda, has anticipated this Thursday some of the ‘strength’ messages that will mark his campaign until the appointment with the polls on February 18. Thus, he has asked his people for “support and push” to not import into Galicia “the lack of control and hubbub of Spain” and to stop those who only seek to “get in the face” of his leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. .
But apart from the path of confrontation at a state level, which the popular party has already opted for in the pre-campaign, he has warned that, if he does not achieve his first absolute majority – it would be the PPdeG’s fifth consecutive majority, the previous four of the hand of Feijóo–, Galicia will “return to the bipartite” that led the community between 2005 and 2009 –although now the popular ones warn of a “multipartite” in which, in addition to PSdeG and BNG, at least Sumar would be present–.
He has done so after claiming that the investment of the current regional government in health is superior to that of the regional executive that led Galicia with the socialist Emilio Pérez Touriño as president, and before guaranteeing that he wants an absolute majority to comply with the Galicians’ ” 870 words given” in his electoral program, which incorporates as many measures.
The national spokesperson for the BNG and candidate for the Presidency of the Xunta, Ana Pontón, has asked to “bet everything on the BNG” in these elections to give Galicia “a great change”, during the opening ceremony of the campaign in the Herculean city .
Supported by militants and sympathizers who attended an event held in Campo da Leña and in which shouts of ‘president’ were heard, Pontón insisted that the nationalist formation is “the best alternative to defeat the PP and launch the change” in the Galician autonomous community.
“It is a decisive moment,” he assured, demanding a government headed by a woman and leaving behind another one of an “exhausted” PP. “Betting on a BNG government is giving this country a big change,” she stated.
All of this in an intervention in which he also asked to “unite the vote” of the “nonconformists” in the nationalist formation. Support has also been requested by “those who doubt” to give Galicia “a new time.”
The PSdeG-PSOE candidate for the presidency of the Xunta, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, called this Thursday in Lugo, at the start of the campaign, for “mobilization” and “excitement” to achieve ballot boxes, he said, “change the history of Galicia.”
“We are going to change the history of Galicia. And we are going to do it with the impulse of the votes, that ballot that makes us all equal, those who have the most and those who have the least,” Besteiro proclaimed at a rally held in the central Plaza de Santa María in the capital, where he has been surrounded by about 500 attendees.
With just over 20 minutes late with respect to the scheduled time – 6:30 p.m. – and with a large banner behind him with the motto “Desta vai!”, Besteiro, accompanied at the event by the first vice president from the Government, María Jesús Montero; the general secretary of the PSdeG, Valentín Formoso; the number two on the provincial list and former mayor of Lugo, Lara Méndez; and the current city councilor, Paula Alvarellos, was the last to speak.
“Galicia is the cradle of matriarchy and that strength of women will allow us to change Galicia,” the socialist candidate began by saying, after thanking María Jesús Montero for her presence at the event and before predicting a “joyful” and “propositive” since, he pointed out, “we socialists love and respect democracy.”
Sumar Galicia’s candidate, Marta Lois, has appealed to the mobilization of all “progressive Galicia”, with the conviction that the formation led by Yolanda Díaz is the “catalyst of change.” “The PP knows it,” emphasized Lois, who has paraphrased Xohana Torres and her popular verse: “Galicia also sails.”
“With the people, with the workers, with the young people, with the social majorities of this country,” Marta Lois stressed. “With Sumar Galicia strong, I am convinced that there will be a change of era, of useful policies and of what matters,” insisted Marta Lois, who has assured that her training “will play a fundamental role.”
The head of the list for A Coruña has been clear, before several dozen supporters and to the music of Fillas de Cassandra, in her convictions: “If Sumar obtains representation, if he enters Parliament, Mr. Rueda will leave.”
With the Rodeiro beach and the Vigo estuary in the background, Lois has once again appealed to the “example” of July 23, in which Sumar “went from words to actions, as the suffragettes say”, now, she added, “It’s Galicia’s turn.” “Adding Galicia is going to be the catalyst for change in the Xunta,” she emphasized, to immediately deny that Galicia is “conservative.”
The Vox candidate, Álvaro Díaz Mella, kicked off the campaign with the traditional hanging of posters that took place in the Plaza de Compostela, in the city of Vigo, supported by members of the candidacy in the province of Pontevedra and the spokesperson for the party’s Parliamentary Group in the Congress of Deputies, Pepa Millán. “We are going to enter the Galician Parliament and we are going to make a difference,” he assured.
During the event, Díaz-Mella stated that starting next February 18, Vox will be able to give a voice in Parliament to all the people who do not feel represented today, since “there is a Galicia that speaks in the markets, in the bars, at the doors of the schools”. “A humble and hard-working Galicia that only tries to get ahead and to which we want to say that they are not alone, that we will speak clearly about their problems, because we want a better Galicia,” he maintains.
The candidate says that Vox is the only guarantee that the problems that really matter to Galicians are addressed and done with “clarity, determination and courage.” “We make a difference,” he says. “This is what we hope to do in Galicia starting next February 18,” he concluded.
