Feijóo, hostage of Aznar and Ayuso
How far gone are those days when Alberto Núñez Feijóo landed in Madrid and promised that he would not contribute to the tension or use insults in politics. And also that Feijóo who, before the Catalan business community, displayed pro-autonomist sensitivity and respect for the Catalan language. If anything has become clear at the start of this political year, it is that the Galician leader is a complete hostage to the party's hard line, which is the same as saying the Madrid PP, led by José María Aznar and Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
As already occurred when Feijóo said in a conversation with journalists that he was open to considering a pardon for the Catalan independence leaders, the PP president has been forced to backtrack on Israel. If Feijóo attempted to be somewhat critical of Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech in Congress on Wednesday, the week ends with the Galician politician aligned with Aznar's completely pro-Israeli positions. The timid about-turn didn't even last 48 hours.
The case of the Gaza war, however, is not unique. There is practically no ideological field right now in which Feijóo can establish a profile compared to his predecessor, Pablo Casado. Feijóo hasn't even dared to defend Xavier García Albiol's decision to sign some points of the National Pact for Language. In fact, it has forced him to qualify his stance.
If Feijóo's strategy were yielding results, at least it would have a practical justification, but that's not the case. Polls show that the PP is stagnant, even trending downward, and that Vox is growing. Blending in with the far right is costing Feijóo dearly, as he is not only losing political autonomy, but his profile is becoming increasingly blurred every day, to the point that it's now impossible to know for sure what he really thinks due to the amount of balancing he's forced to do.
In the case of Israel and Gaza, moreover, it's cutting a cold steel, because pro-Israeli positions are being capitalized on by Vox, which has an unequivocal stance on this issue (as, incidentally, does the Catalan Alliance in Catalonia). One can legitimately disagree with Pedro Sánchez's decisions such as recognizing Palestine as a state, but wrap oneself in euphemisms, not to say genocide Or attempting to downplay the Palestinian victims, as the Madrid PP does, is not only shameful but also a political mistake, because even its voters are against the human catastrophe caused by the Israeli army in Gaza. This is a textbook case in which ideological prejudices are being placed above common sense and the slightest humanity.
It seems that Feijóo has once again fallen flat on his hands and knees into a trap set by Pedro Sánchez, who has a special nose for connecting with public opinion, especially at the international level. However, the Galician leader once again appears as a mere puppet of Aznar and Ayuso, incapable of establishing a position different from that of those currently shuffling the cherries in the PP.