A few hours before the electoral curtain rises in Spain for the first time since June 9, 2024, the date of the elections to the European Parliament, Alberto Núñez Feijóo looks at Extremadura as if it were an omen on the electoral map. In an informal conversation with journalists this Friday, the leader of the PP is convinced that María Guardiola will take an advantage of up to ten points over the PSOE in Sunday’s elections. A resounding victory that would not be limited to the regional level, but rather would be a warning that would find an echo in Moncloa. “A victory of ten points in percentage of votes over the Socialist Party would be a very clear message to Pedro Sánchez“, assured Feijóo.
The president of the PP sees Extremadura as the first electoral stage that will show the political attrition suffered by the Socialist Party, and even more if we take into account that the candidate presented by the socialists, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, was prosecuted for a case that directly affects the environment of the President of the Government, like the one investigating his brother. On this subject, Feijóo emphasized that Sánchez “flagrantly” violated the statutes of the PSOE by presenting an accused head of the list.
In this way, the leader of the PP predicted that the PSOE would suffer an unprecedented disaster in Extremadura and would remain ten points below the Popular Party, a victory that would occur in a historically socialist stronghold like Extremadura and which “It wouldn’t go away overnight.“. “The Socialist Party is the only party that is ostensibly going down, and all the others are going to go up,” he predicted, while emphasizing that it will be a “very clear” message for Sánchez. In addition, Feijóo dared Vox up to 12%which would remain around eight or nine seats – compared to the five obtained in the last elections –, while Unidas por Extremadura, led by Irene de Miguel, also believes that it will improve its results.
However, Feijóo considered it practically impossible to obtain an absolute majority and established the threshold of 30 seats as a “basic objective” for Sundayas reported by popular sources in recent days. From there, the objective is to exceed 40% of the votes and gain enough strength to obtain more votes than the entire left combined, and thus depend as little as possible on the formation led by Santiago Abascal, who presents Óscar Hernández as a candidate for the Council. In this sense, the leader of the PP assured that this scenario would be something “totally new”, and he considers that Vox ‘will have to see what people say’ if Guardiola remains ‘two or three seats’ from absolutewhich is set to 33.
On the other hand, regarding the absence of the candidate for re-election during the debate held this Thursday on RTVE, Feijóo believes that Guardiola was not injured and, in fact, insists that “it was good for her”. The popular leader bases his thesis on this: “Neither the PSOE, nor Vox, nor Unidas Podemos have a project“, and he maintains that the interviews carried out by the Baroness of Extremadura in regional newspapers had “more impact” than the debate itself. “The absence in the debate had more importance here in Madrid than there in Extremadura,” he said.
“We must improve the preservation of postal voting”
Feijóo also spoke about the affairs that tormented the last days of the campaign, such as the theft of 124 ballots in Fuente de Cantos (Badajoz) and the reaction of popular leaders, in particular of María Guardiola herself. Concretely, the most popular denounced the fact that democracy was “stolen”, and they encouraged Extremadurans to vote in person on Sunday. In this way, the leader of the PP formulated these reactions in a situation where “it was not very clear what was happening”.
When asked if he overreacted at first, Feijóo felt that “Everything is subject to debate”, but he insisted that the urgency is “to improve the conservation of postal voting”.. In this sense, he took the opportunity to denounce the little information that was reported by Correos on this subject, since he mentioned similar cases of assaults in different headquarters of the public company in Extremadura that had not been notified to the parties. In fact, Feijóo said they discovered the thefts because the Post Office called the mayor of Fuente de Cantos, but not the Electoral Board or the government, institutions from which no clarification of what happened has come. Faced with this situation, the president of the PP considered that “we must inform the political parties about these situations.”
Regardless, Feijóo spoke of the need to strengthen controls when monitoring postal votes and transfer them as quickly as possible to the Postal Processing Center to avoid this type of situation. ““They cannot be left there as if they were stamps,” he criticized, while calling for “the matter to be closed.” and that the Electoral Council takes appropriate measures to guarantee the security of the elections. “The logic is to take extreme precautions,” he concluded.
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