The PP and Vox have designed a campaign whose main objective is to prevent the left from mobilizing. It is for this reason that their candidates, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP) and Santiago Abascal (Vox), avoided an uncomfortable photograph this Wednesday with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, a character known for his buffoonery and insults towards what he calls leftists (zurdos, in Spanish). The strategy, however, did not work out very well for them. First, because the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, skipped the veto and did indeed meet with Milei and took a photo with him. And second, because a kind of Streisand effect also occurred, that is to say, there was more talk about their interest in not coinciding with him than about the visit itself.

From being disparagingly called the Monguer by some of her party colleagues to receiving the nickname of the Empress. The rise of Isabel Díaz Ayuso within the Madrid PP has been as surprising as it has been meteoric. How has she managed to go from contempt to hegemony? The journalist David Fernández (Madrid, 1975) analyzes this trajectory in the book Ayuso. Zancadillas, intrigas y venganzas en la Corte de Madrid (Libros del K.O., 2026), an unauthorized biography for which he has spoken with 180 people who have known the current president of the Community of Madrid in different stages of her political career.

Pedro Sánchez, in an interview with Eldiario.es, has asked the “lefts” to his left to “please” reach an agreement, and has also said that it is "time for Parliament to look more like the street and not like those who live in penthouses". He wanted to land a little jab at Isabel Díaz Ayuso and her apartment, bought not with “vulture funds” but perhaps with “vulture ends”, but he did not do it well. The lefts will never reach an agreement, because if they reach an agreement it means they have become centrist. Being on the left is, above all, being more left-wing than the others and living to point out those others who are not as left-wing as you. It is like being pro-independence. You cannot reach an agreement, because if you reach an agreement you are no longer pro-independence, you are a federalist, and you live to point out those who are a little less pro-independencethan you.

Shortly after the announcement of the election call, the PP's social media accounts circulated a video showing Minister Óscar Puente writhing in pain after breaking his leg. And the New Generations, one showing immigrants in Ceuta with the slogan: "Either them or us." These were two samples of where the party aspiring to govern Spain intends to take the campaign. Also on the same day, Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Vox asked their voters not to even think about voting by mail, thus sowing doubt about whether the current government is preparing a rigging. This is a scarecrow that the right has been waving for some time, with the idea of portraying Pedro Sánchez as an aspiring dictator.

Following Junts' vote against the two housing decrees, Rufián asserted that he would strive to ensure that Junts ends up in "the greatest political ostracism." Later, on social media, he considered them "fucking classists" and Turull retorted by saying that everyone knows that Rufián is "an invention of the State's sewers, infiltrated first in Súmate and then in Esquerra." And yesterday, on TVE, Colau said that Puigdemont "will have problems walking through Catalonia because he will encounter a very angry citizenry" due to Junts' opposing vote on the decrees.

Joy on the right over Pedro Sánchez's decision to call early elections. Both the PP and Vox have applauded the announcement for November 29, which they see as the definitive opportunity to end the Sanchista era. "Finally, we can close this chapter," celebrated Alberto Núñez Feijóo in an institutional statement at the Popular Party headquarters shortly after the Spanish Prime Minister's announcement. The PP leader has been waiting for years for a second chance to reach La Moncloa after his failed attempt in 2023, and has positioned these new polls as a transcendental occasion in which much more will be done "than choosing between two parties." "This is about making Spain defeat Sánchez and what he represents," proclaimed Feijóo, who urged citizens to decide "if they want four more years of what we are living through or if they want to give change a chance." However, the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has gone a step further and has once again fueled the ghost of electoral fraud.

After eight years, Pedro Sánchez, in the midst of a housing and legislative crisis – partly due to the rejection by the Congress of Deputies of the two housing decrees approved by the Spanish government – and with rumors of an early election, returns to the annual event that brings together the major family businesses. After avoiding it since the last time he participated, in October 2018, in Valencia, a few months after winning the motion of no confidence that toppled Mariano Rajoy (PP), the head of the executive committed to opening this Monday the 29th edition of the national congress organized in Madrid by the Family Business Institute (IEF). This organization brings together a hundred of the main family businesses, from Mercadona to Fluidra, Puig, Hotusa, Mango, Occident, Pikolín, Banca March or Banco Santander, among others.

“Impunity, illegality, and disorder cannot continue to roam at will in Puerta del Sol”. The government of the Community of Madrid, led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is raising the tone and demanding that the Moncloa evict the encampment that was set up on Saturday in Puerta del Sol, right in front of the Royal Post Office, the headquarters of the Madrid presidency. After the protesters have spent their third night there, the Madrid executive has sent a formal request to the Spanish government's Delegation to remove them within a maximum period of 48 hours.

The 6.3 million euro luxury penthouse acquired by the Community of Madrid has become a thorn in the side for Isabel Díaz Ayuso's government. The controversy, which threatens to grow even larger following the traumatic eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, has reached the courts and also the Court of Auditors. But almost two months after El País exposed the purchase, it remains surrounded by unknowns, changing narratives, and contradictions. A similar situation, tragedy aside, to the one that occurred with Carlos Mazón regarding his role on the day of the DANA in the Valencian Community.

"The image of the Community of Madrid government is Formula 1 this past weekend." With these words, Isabel Díaz Ayuso made clear how important the Grand Prix of motoring, dubbed Madring, is for her political project. The Madrid president has fully committed to the event and has turned it into a showcase for her management model, ignoring the criticisms it has generated among residents, the opposition, and even pilots who participated in the urban circuit. The leader of the Madrid PP has defended it by contrasting a supposed defeatism of the left, which would want a diminished capital, with the spectacular nature and "resounding success" of Madrid, which hosts major events and demonstrates to the world an "extraordinary organizational capacity." The F1 arrives at a delicate moment for Ayuso: the luxury penthouse scandal is not fading, and this very Friday she admitted that she went to see the property without the intention of living in it, and the judge has already taken a step to investigate the matter.

No one wanted to buy Isabel Díaz Ayuso's luxury penthouse. The auction of the property remained deserted, according to the documentation from Planifica Madrid, which was finally made known this Thursday. That the attempt to sell the controversial penthouse has been, for the moment, frustrated, became known a few minutes before the Minister of the Presidency, Miguel Ángel García Martín, who is the president of Planifica Madrid –the public company that acquired the property for 6.3 million euros and subsequently put it up for sale for almost 6.8–, appeared at the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly. It was a highly anticipated appearance to clarify the unknowns about the operation and it did not convince the opposition. What the minister did respond is that they will put the property up for auction again because they are determined to sell it.

Catalonia 40, Madrid 0. This is the claim made by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the PP of the Community of Madrid regarding the public money costs of Formula 1. While the Madrid president's team wields this controversial comparison in millions of euros, the Madrid left, associations of residents affected by the Madrid Grand Prix, and environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, have questioned the narrative of the Popular Party and reject the claim that the organization of this major event will not be to the detriment of the public treasury.

The day after Isabel Díaz Ayuso appeared for more than two hours in the Madrid Assembly without giving explanations about the luxury penthouse, the opposition's attacks provoked a reaction from the Madrid president after they accused her of "corruption".The penthouse and the chao, pescao will be the epitaph of her political life," declared this Friday the spokesperson for Más Madrid in the regional chamber, Manuela Bergerot. The opposition leader argued that the purchase of the 6.3 million euro property is "the definitive proof" that Ayuso "is corrupt". In the same vein, the PSOE denounced that the leader of the Madrid PP "has thought herself God and has become drunk on power". "The penthouse is a before and after. Her bargain is over, and her political career too," asserted the socialist spokesperson, Mar Espinar.

After a summer haunted by the luxury penthouse scandal, in what has been the most compromising episode of her political career, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has tried to turn the page on the crisis by claiming that both she and her executive are in top form and have "more desire than ever." That is the message and energy she wanted to convey this Thursday in a two-hour appearance at the Madrid Assembly, which is holding the debate on the state of the region, in which the Madrid president offered no further explanations regarding the controversial purchase of the property. "Let's talk about issues that really matter" with "optimism and enthusiasm," claim sources from the PP of Madrid. The popular bench gave a standing ovation to Ayuso's intervention, whom even internal voices had questioned over the management of the luxury penthouse controversy, and their leader boasted about her project without making any self-criticism and focusing her speech on reeling off a cascade of announcements –"100 new measures" in various areas– and on attacking Pedro Sánchez.

Obviously, the headline is ironic. And if not, judge for yourselves. It turns out that Eduardo Inda has published an interview with the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, on the eve of the Formula 1 Grand Prix celebration. And what follows are the questions he asks her, all very witty and, above all, incisive. First: "We have toured the entire circuit, there are a lot of Spanish flags, right? That's a bit far-right, a bit fascist, a bit reactionary. And that flag, which is bigger than the one in Colón...". Second: "At every turn, everywhere there is the Spanish flag. The government delegate, Francisco Martín, would surely have preferred Bildu flags". Third: "The truth is that what we have seen is impressive, colossal, there is nothing like it in the world". Fourth: "The area full of bars and restaurants is very good, it looks like the Plaza Mayor, with very well-known places. Whose idea was it?". Fifth: "I love so many Spanish flags, I'm very fascist, very far-right, but I love it". Sixth: "What did you think of the banked turn?" Seventh: "They say it will be the circuit with the most public transport in the world". Eighth: "You said that the Grand Prix would not cost the taxpayer a single euro. Do you maintain that?" (This is the only question that is saved, and Ayuso's answer is: "Why can the Catalonia Grand Prix have 40 million and Madrid zero?" In other words, it will cost the taxpayers money.) Ninth: "Manuela Bergerot, spokesperson for Més Madrid, who is a picturesque character, has said that the Grand Prix will not contribute anything to the people of Madrid". Tenth: "Will the Prime Minister come?" Eleventh: "Will any minister or representative of the central government come?" Twelfth: "And the friend of Bildu and ETA, the government delegate".

At this point, the only interest of the political figure of the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is to personify the idea of banal power: raw power that has no other objective or purpose than to keep power itself running –and to benefit from it, of course, herself and a circle formed by accomplices and usurers (to whom favors must be returned with interest)–. Her ideological positions are inconsistent, vague; even her anti-Catalanism is routine, a chapter from the same instruction manual that also includes Madrid nationalism, the exaltation of the “Christian roots” of Spanish culture (whatever it is that these people understand by Spanish culture), the vindication of Spanish colonialism in America, anti-feminism, or the denial of climate change and the pandemic.The Community of Madrid –an administrative and political artifact that should be discussed in depth, starting with its very reason for existing– has long since become an optimal gear of this way of understanding power, in which politics, finance, justice, and the media configure, in effect, a state within a state, with its own laws written nowhere but known to everyone. An oligarchy, if you want to call it that. The most forceful staging of the effectiveness and refinement achieved by this gear is the confrontation between the Community of Madrid and the government of Spain presided over by Sánchez and with the Generalitat presided over by Illa, as powers aligned within the socialist sphere. The most raw and spectacular episode –so far– of this confrontation has been starred in by Ayuso and her advisor Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a character who completely contradicts the profile of spin doctors as brains hidden in the shadows or behind the scenery of power. Rodríguez, who is a loudmouth, is enthusiastic about cameras, microphones, and social media, and he allowed himself the luxury of announcing step by step the fall of an entire Attorney General of the State without the judiciary, which had to carry out the script that Rodríguez was anticipating –the Supreme Court–, having any hesitation at all when it came to carrying out such a clumsy and brazen move. On the contrary, there was clear self-satisfaction in it all.One of the most recognizable ingredients in this recipe for understanding power is impunity, which has intoxicating, stupefying, and aphrodisiac effects. Just as it acts as a state within a state, the power of the Community of Madrid also likes to act as a party within the party, and Ayuso and her circle have created the myth of having toppled a secretary general and presidential candidate (Casado), and of having the next one (Feijóo) in their hands. But lately, Feijóo has allowed himself to leave Ayuso alone in the penthouse scandal and at Friday's meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, which was attended by all the barons of the Popular Party, in contrast to Ayuso's snub. Impunity is a substance that has powerful highs, but also sudden crashes.

It is common that when a media outlet breaks an exclusive, they claim the topic and follow it up in detail, among other things to prevent others from appropriating it. "This topic must be ours," is often heard in newsrooms. This is precisely what is happening these days The Country with the news of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's penthouse, revealed on July 28 and which is still ongoing, to the despair of the Madrid president, who on August 24 complained that "the gum could no longer be stretched" on the penthouse, in that speech crowned by a very traditional "goodbye fish". But The Country has continued to publish information almost every day, and even a delicious piece on which the obsession of Spaniards with penthouses was analyzed based on cinematographic references such as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

The choice of words is important, as is the non-choice. With levels of language, orality, false rhetoric, imposture, care, swear words, barbarisms, slang, we build a way of understanding the world. On the trip to Sicily that we took with readers of ARA and Il Viagetto, a Sicilian woman explained to us that she and her daughter understood each other with a language of signs and facial expressions that, on the other hand, her son, who lived in England, did not understand. The gesture of cutting the throat, furrowing the brows and bringing the fingers together – “Like a magnolia”, as Víctor Català would say – touching the heart, touching the nose... We imitate the everyday way of speaking of mothers, grandmothers, and politicians.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso's all-powerful chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, has taken offense because a media outlet, in this case El País, published that the Madrid president has rented an apartment in an exclusive urbanization in Puerta del Hierro. "It's the first time a politician's home is being persecuted... Incredible," he tweeted.

It has been twenty days since the scandal of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's luxury penthouse came to light, and the controversy continues to haunt the Madrid president. The political and media brawl is intrinsic to the way the leader of the PP of Madrid operates, but the type of operation and the communication management carried out by the Community of Madrid in recent weeks has turned this episode into the one that could most harm the popular leader, just ten months before the regional elections.