Post office in Catalonia seizes envelope with two bullets for Ayuso

MadridThreats continue to mark the campaign of the Madrid elections. Yesterday, the same day that the Ministry of Interior was forced to review candidates' security, as eldiario.es advanced, two new cases came to light, one of them with origin in Catalonia. According to El Confidencial and El País - later confirmed by the Spanish government - yesterday the Post office's security systems detected a letter with two bullets in the distribution center of Sant Cugat del Vallès, addressed to the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The Mossos are already investigating the case, which is added to a letter intercepted yesterday in Vallecas with four bullets addressed to the Guardia Civil leadership.

In the midst of this rarefied climate, Interior decided to increase protection for candidates. On Monday it was announced that the former Spanish second vice president Pablo Iglesias's security detail was reinforced, and yesterday it was known that the same would be done with the acting regional president, Isabel Diaz Ayuso. PSOE and Cs sources also confirmed to Europa Press that Interior had assigned bodyguards to Ángel Gabilondo and Edmundo Bal, while Más Madrid and Vox did not inform whether their candidates had also been given protection. In fact, the far-right party complains that it cannot hold events safely without being boycotted.

Faced with the new threatening letter, the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, condemned the facts "without palliatives" and, in a tweet, assured that the letters to Ayuso and also, "again", to the director of the Civil Guard, Maria Gámez, are "threats to everybody". "[We will be] Neither tolerant nor complicit with violence and the spread of hatred," Sanchez says in the tweet.

On the other hand, Madrid's own president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, also made a tweet after learning the news, in which she called for "serenity". All the main political leaders of Madrid condemned the threats, from the leader of Unidas Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, to Vox's candidate, Rocío Monasterio.

Government weighs in on the campaign

The Unidas Podemos candidate has driven the anti-Vox debate, and yesterday added a new player to the campaign: Felipe VI. At an event in Getafe, Iglesias wondered how it could be that the King's House had not uttered "a word" to condemn "fascist violence". Who did ask for an explicit and unequivocal rejection of the threats was the spokesperson of the Spanish government, María Jesús Montero, who from the press room of the Moncloa reproached the PP for appeasing Vox. The conservative party has counterattacked reproaching the left for its pacts with EH Bildu. Montero then stressed that the conservative party does not join the cordon sanitaire against the far right because it needs them to retain power.

Montero's words came after Ayuso refused to veto Vox, although in an interview with RNE she suggested the Socialists vote her into power if they don't want her to rely on Vox. "Neither Ayuso nor Vox," the socialist candidate immediately replied, who defended his commitment to a progressive government that, according to the latest polls looks unlikely.

Elaborated by Metroscopia and published yesterday in El País, it predicts a clear victory with 59 seats for the PP, which, together with Vox's 13 seats, would have a majority. The PSOE would suffer a major setback that would benefit Más Madrid: Gabilondo would fall from 37 to 28 seats and Mónica García would rise from 20 to 25 seats. Podemos, however, would fail to capitalise and only gain 11 seats with 7.8% of the vote. Ciudadanos would come in last, continuing its path towards disappearance with only 3% of the vote.