'Los pocholos' and Ayuso: what's happening in the PP of Madrid?

MadridThe internal crisis facing Isabel Díaz Ayuso is evident, although the Madrid president has tried to downplay it. During Thursday's question time in the Madrid Assembly, Ayuso had to address the controversial fall from grace of a sector within her regional government and the Popular Party's parliamentary group. "There is no distraction tactic that can cover up the infighting that has erupted with Viciana's dismissal," warned the leader of the opposition, spokesperson for Más Madrid, Manuela Bergerot. The departure earlier this week of the Minister of Education, Emilio Viciana, has triggered a trickle of resignations and dismissals of other officials linked to the now former minister. All of them fall under the influence of Antonio Castillo Algarra, a playwright considered an advisor to Ayuso in the educational and cultural spheres, and who is also one of those who resigned as director of the Spanish Ballet of the Community of Madrid.

In her response to the Madrid left, Ayuso defended her appointments of members of the ultraconservative group linked to Castillo Algarra, known as the popcorns —due to their youth and privileged background—who are now being questioned for their inexperience and disputed management skills in the administration. Ayuso has called Viciana an "honest civil servant" and highlighted that among the members of this group were "an aerospace engineer, civil servants, and law professors." One example is Pablo Posse, the aerospace engineer to whom the Madrid president referred. The 30-year-old served as the Education spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly until he resigned his seat this Tuesday in a parliamentary committee, tearfully mentioning Castillo Algarra, whom he defended against the "defamation."

In recent days, the media has focused on the indoctrination of young people carried out by the former director of the Spanish Ballet through the academy and theater company For the Fun of It, to which, according to its website, figures like Posse were openly linked before making the leap. Through these profiles, Castillo Algarra allegedly left his mark on the policies of the Ayuso government and, specifically, on one of its most controversial legislative projects: the university law being prepared by Viciana, which has failed to get off the ground and had provoked a rebellion from a large part of the educational community. "The law as it is currently written will not pass," the Ayuso government stated after appointing Mercedes Zarzalejo—from the Madrid president's inner circle—as her successor and tasked with redirecting it. Furthermore, just a few months ago, she had already established the law as a matter of policy with the deputy minister in an attempt to overcome it.

"She's been left alone with the same old crowd, with her bunker," Bergerot, from Más Madrid, emphasized. The Socialist spokesperson, Mar Espinar, insisted that "the university crisis isn't solved by replacing Viciana with Zarzalejo, nor by..." popcorn "By pit bulls." Regarding the internal crisis, he opined that in the face of the succession of scandals, "they are losing their fear of her, the grassroots are rebelling, and rightly so." While Ayuso's leadership in the Madrid PP is undeniable, it is true that this confrontation between factions vying for influence over Madrid is even further, and he attributed the dismissal to Viciana "denouncing the corruption of Ayuso's inner circle," "the only red line that cannot be crossed in the PP," "BK_SLT_LNA~" said. A Madrid court is investigating alleged irregularities by Viciana's previous team, which was headed by two members of Ayuso's inner circle in the Madrid PP, who are indeed under scrutiny. Enrique Ossorio, praetorian.

Thursday's plenary session began with the swearing-in of the three deputies who are replacing the parliamentarians popcorn And with Ayuso posing for a photograph with her advisors, including the recently appointed Zarzalejo and Albert. The Madrid president reaffirms the role of her praetorian guard, one of whose leading figures is Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (MÁR), her chief of staff, against whom she has openly attacked Castillo Algarra in X after losing her share of power. According to the playwright, the media outlets that are targeting him are publishing "at MÁR's behest," and he maintains that Viciana's management of the Education Ministry has been "the best and most thorough in decades."