Feijóo's gesture that recalls the one that ended Casado

BarcelonaThroughout the month of August, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has let things happen. While the controversy over the luxury penthouse – purchased by the Community of Madrid – of the president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, grew week after week, he didn't say a word, neither to criticize her nor to defend her. This calculated silence ended in an interview with Europa Press in which he made a gesture that the popular party members know well: demanding internal explanations. A gesture that recalls what four years earlier cost the then popular leader, Pablo Casado, his position, and which precisely opened the doors to the leadership of the popular party for Feijóo.

On July 29, El País revealed that the Community of Madrid had purchased, three months earlier and without making it public, a luxury penthouse in the Madrid neighborhood of Chamberí for 6.3 million euros through the public company Planifica Madrid. The official version defended that it would be a "temporary office" while the works at the Presidency headquarters, in Puerta del Sol, lasted, but the property had exclusively residential use. The incoherence was so exposed that, only 24 hours after the news broke, the Madrid government was already announcing its sale.

Ayuso, for her part, has been prolonging the explanation: first she referred all questions to the Minister of the Presidency, and weeks later she tried to divert the focus to the official residences of the Spanish government. In this context, Génova called for closing ranks around Ayuso, but Feijóo did not comment on it. He let the deputy secretary, Cuca Gamarra, face the music: "Explanations have been given actively, passively, and periphrastically," Gamarra defended.

Feijóo's turn – which recalls the 2022 episode between Ayuso and Casado – came in a recent interview with Europa Press coinciding with the Ceuta migratory crisis, in which the popular leader combined two contradictory messages. On the one hand, he confirmed that he knew since April that Ayuso's team was looking for a temporary space for the Sol works. On the other hand, he added that "it is evident that the Treasury of the Community of Madrid will have to explain why it bought a property that cannot be used as an office." In the same response, Feijóo defended Ayuso and demanded accountability.

The reaction of the Madrid president was not long in coming. The very next day, from the San Juan reservoir, she dismissed the controversy with three words: "It's for sale; bye, fish". Furthermore, she threw a jab at her own leader, lamenting that "if you ask each politician who comes on vacation one by one, it's obvious there are new headlines, but it's pretty much the same." However, she demanded that "you can't stretch the gum any further.

The change in leadership

The precedent that now resurfaces dates back to February 2022, when the then PP leader, Pablo Casado, questioned the legality of a mask contract awarded to a company friendly with Ayuso's brother, which would have charged nearly 280,000 euros in commissions. Casado even opened an informational file that could have ended with the suspension of militancy for the Madrid president. The dispute turned into an open war that only lasted a week: on April 1st, the then popular leader bid farewell to the party in Seville without any self-criticism or a word with Ayuso; the next day, Feijóo took over, promising "moderation".