The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, announced this Monday that she rejects the call of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to meet this Friday in La Moncloa. In a statement, the conservative baroness argues that the appointment does not make sense after the PSOE general secretary also demanded his resignation, linked his name to corruption in Congress and negotiated with ERC a unique financing for Catalonia. In parallel, the regional president stated last week that the central Executive was made up of “tyrants” who use “mafia practices” and continued with the preparations for an investigative commission in the Assembly in which Begoña Gómez, the woman, will have to testify. of Sanchez. The two leaders have not met since July 2021, when the president of Madrid went to La Moncloa. On this occasion, Díaz Ayuso has been the only regional president who has rejected the offer of a meeting with the president.
“Less than 24 hours before the call of La Moncloa, the President of the Government defamed the President on an official trip to Brussels, with very serious accusations that were in the same line as his intervention, the day before, in the Congress of the Deputies”, reads the statement from the Community of Madrid, sent first thing in the morning. “The ministers have been ordered to repeat them during the last hours, in an unacceptable and inappropriate campaign of a Government against an inferior administration.”
Furthermore, the statement from the Community of Madrid mentions as reasons for rejecting the call the “breakup of the common treasury of all Spaniards with the independence partners of the Government” and that “since the last general elections a series of destructive decisions have been made. whose negative effects will take a long time to reverse.”
And it is emphasized: “The institutional deterioration to which Spain is being subjected cannot be overlooked.”
An immense irresponsibility that the people of Madrid do not deserve.
What they would have said and done if this same thing had been proposed from another autonomous community… https://t.co/mKOBjBNa0d
— Fran Martín Aguirre (@franmartagui) October 21, 2024
Although the invitation to go to La Moncloa was received by Ayuso’s team on Friday, he did not clarify it when asked by this newspaper that same day, nor did he want to reveal whether he would attend or not when asked about it.
Rejecting the invitation, said the government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, is “an immense irresponsibility.” In any case, the decision highlights the institutional clash that has confronted the two administrations since Díaz Ayuso came to power in August 2019, and which has had more than a dozen judicial ramifications, and has dealt with foreign policy, education, health, economic or fiscal.
There are no recent examples of a regional president refusing to respond to the call of the head of the central executive. Rejecting the invitation, said the government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, is “an immense irresponsibility.” The decision highlights the institutional clash that has confronted the two administrations since Díaz Ayuso came to power in August 2019, and which has had more than a dozen judicial ramifications, and has dealt with foreign, educational, health, economic or political policy. fiscal.cative, health, economic or fiscal.
Last week, without going any further, the two leaders clashed again. First, Sánchez mentioned in Congress the “A for Ayuso” as part of the PP’s alphabet of corruption, in reference to the investigation that affects the president’s partner, Alberto González Amador, for the alleged commission of two crimes of fraud. tax valued at more than 350,000 euros and one of forgery in a commercial document. Later, in Brussels, the president of the government asked the president of Madrid to resign.
In the middle, on Thursday and in the Assembly, Díaz Ayuso affirmed that Spain had a government of “tyrants” and assured: “The citizen is defenseless against a Government that uses mafia practices.”
That phrase culminated a parliamentary intervention in which the Baroness and all the spokespersons for the PP of Madrid charged against Sánchez and the PSOE for the Koldo case, the controversies surrounding the former minister José Luis Ábalos, the prosecution of the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, and the investigations opened into the president’s wife and his brother. The latter has been summoned by Díaz Ayuso’s PP to testify in an investigative commission in the Madrid Parliament organized to clarify the alleged favorable treatment received by the Complutense University.
During the weekend, the president’s team insisted on this strategic line of total shock, without clarifying at any time that she had decided not to go to La Moncloa.
“Summary from Wednesday to Sunday: Sánchez, ministers and PSOE come out to call President Díaz Ayuso corrupt,” transmitted a source trusted by Ayuso. “This is how they intend to cover up all the filth that affects Sánchez’s wife, his brother, his former number 2, attorney general, ministers, president of Congress… Let’s see what they come up with this week.”
However, the cross recriminations of last week are just an excuse to explain the rejection of an appointment that had been in the air for much longer.
Thus, Díaz Ayuso tried to set the strategy of the national leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, by publicly demanding that the rest of the conservative regional presidents not go to La Moncloa to talk to Sánchez about financing. When the party agreed on that position, and maintained the previous line of demanding the convening of the conference of presidents, the Madrid leader continued without confirming her presence at an appointment that her conservative counterparts from Galicia, La Rioja, Murcia or Cantabria, and this Friday María Guardiola, president of Extremadura, will star.
Díaz Ayuso should also have attended that day, since the meetings are being organized based on the year of approval of the autonomy statutes, and it was already the turn of the regions in 1983. But it will not be like that. The president of Madrid, who has defended the right of her colleagues to demand from Sánchez in a bilateral meeting what they need for their regions, will bargain for the opportunity to do the same and will maintain an event that she had already scheduled in Galicia.
Díaz Ayuso will chair the meeting of the Madrid PP executive this Monday afternoon. Miguel Tellado, spokesperson for the party in Congress and a man of Núñez Feijóo’s greatest confidence, will attend. This invitation is interpreted as a gesture of support from Díaz Ayuso to a politician who is not going through his best moment. It remains to be seen what can also be understood in the opposite sense: as the endorsement of Núñez Feijóo’s management to sit down Sánchez.
