"Either you accept or elections": the moderate 'baron' of the PP, about to surrender to Vox in Andalusia

Barcelona / MadridFirst, the president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, had to go through Vox's address book, despite the difficulties; then it was the turn of Jorge Azcón's Aragon and Alfonso Fernández Mañueco's Castilla y León. But the greatest exponent of the PP moderates, the Andalusian president, the "Sorayist Juanma Moreno Bonilla, who will also yield to Vox's demands, as he himself has admitted and as the state leadership wants. The agreement is being finalized, but the only doubt remaining is the timing, that is, whether he will capitulate for this Thursday's investiture session or postpone it further, playing hard to get for public opinion. In any case, according to sources familiar with the negotiations between the PP and Vox consulted by ARA, the dilemma was clear from the start: "Either you accept the conditions or elections," said the Vox negotiating team.

After a first meeting before the constitution of the Parliament on June 11, everything changed: there was a "chip change" from Moreno, according to the consulted sources. The attitude changed completely and it made Vox's ranks see that "he had accepted it", that he knew what he had to submit to, beyond the entry of the radical right into the executive: he had to give in on the "national priority", on aid and access to public services, and on the deregulatory agenda – which is not only de-bureaucratization, but "dismantling socialist structures" in the form of autonomous bodies –.

However, national priority has been the main problem: as confirmed by the ARA from knowledgeable sources, Moreno conveyed from the beginning that he "wanted to reduce" the text on this issue that they had signed in other regions because Andalusia was different and he had narrowly missed an absolute majority. But Vox warned from the beginning that no concessions towards an "Andalusian priority" would be accepted sui generis and the question was always when he would yield. Furthermore, consulted sources add that there is an element that has worked in favor of the agreement: "Feijóo made the click some time ago". In fact, in mid-June he clearly defended governing in coalition with Vox in the future.

From this, it is understood that sources from the national leadership of the PP send a "message of tranquility and confidence" that Moreno "will be president and there will be no repeat election." And that if it were the case that this Thursday the agreement did not happen and he was not invested, "it will end up coming true in a few weeks," as happened in the case of Guardiola, according to the sources consulted. This does not hide the "discomfort" that other sources point out from Moreno himself and people around him, which is added to the fact that some popular members were in favor of going for a repeat election if necessary. A scenario, however, that came to nothing.

It should be remembered that Moreno was fundamentally opposed to the national priority at the time, as was the Madrid native Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The Andalusian president stressed that the law had to be complied with and that focus should be placed on "roots," the concept to which the national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, clung.

For Vox, the national priority was "non-negotiable," key to the working-class turn. The party, moreover, has at all times demanded entry into the Andalusian government with a ministry to "monitor and be influential," in addition to the program agreed upon with the calendar as a guarantee. Aware of their strength, they have also warned that they will leave the executive if the agreements are not fulfilled.

The conversations

Who has been part of the negotiations? In the PP team, the general secretary of the Andalusian populars, Antonio Repullo, and the Minister of the Presidency of the region, Antonio Sanz, have been there from the very beginning, joined by Moreno Bonilla himself, who initially did not even want to be directly involved in the talks and wanted to delegate them to people he trusted. On the Vox side, as usual, it has been the deputy general secretary, the Catalan Montse Lluis, who has led the talks in situ, with the remote support of the general secretary of the Vox group in Congress, José María Figaredo, and the deputy spokesperson, Carlos Hernández Quero. However, most of the meetings have been remote, and to exchange documents, Lluis has acted as a bridge and the general secretary, Ignacio Garriga, has been validating. Initially, the general secretary of the PP, Miguel Tellado, has not been directly involved, even though everything had to be validated by the state leadership.