The leader of the Popular Party, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, will undergo his third investiture session as president of the Junta de Castilla y León next Tuesday, June 9, after the governability agreement reached on Wednesday the 3rd with Vox, which will lead to his third coalition executive and the second consecutive one with Santiago Abascal's party, already a partner in the first half of the previous term.
Fernández Mañueco will be invested thanks to the support of the Popular Group, with 33 representatives, and the Vox Group, with 14, while the rest of the opposition parties plan to vote against. This has been confirmed by the spokesperson for the Socialist Group, Carlos Martínez, and the spokesperson for the Mixed Group and representative of UPL, Alicia Gallego, to which is added the contrary position of the representative of Soria ¡Ya!, Ángel Ceña, who has indicated the same line of rejection. "The pact --PP and Vox-- would have to change a lot," he pointed out.
The Board of the Cortes, after hearing the Board of Spokespersons, has set the investiture plenary session to begin at 12:00 PM with the intervention, without time limit, of the candidate, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco. The session will resume at 4:00 PM with the turn of the Socialist Group and, afterwards, the rest of the groups will intervene from least to most representation —Mixed Group, Vox, and PP—, with 30 minutes for the first intervention and 10 minutes for the reply. Fernández Mañueco will be able to respond individually or jointly, also without a time limit.
The three parties that make up the Mixed Group —UPL, Soria ¡Ya!, and Por Ávila— will share the time according to their weight in the Chamber —three seats for the first and one for the other two—, so they will have 18, 6, and 6 minutes for the first intervention and 6, 2, and 2 minutes for the reply.
The order of interventions has been a cause of friction in the Board of Spokespersons, as Vox argued that the Mixed Group should open the debate, followed by the PSOE, and closed by the two parties that will support the future regional government, Vox and PP. Finally, the Board has opted to maintain the scheme of previous legislatures, so that the PSOE will open the turn, with Carlos Martínez as the new spokesperson, followed by Alicia Gallego in the Mixed Group, Carlos Pollán for Vox, and Leticia García for the PP.
According to the various spokespersons in their subsequent appearances, the swearing-in of Fernández Mañueco as president of the Junta will be held in the "coming days," although the exact date is yet to be determined.
Martínez has justified the vote against by the 30 socialist representatives due to the content of the pact signed on Wednesday by the "duo of tightrope walkers" —Fernández Mañueco and Pollán—, whom he has accused of spending days trying to find a point of balance "to deceive and hide the massive deception to which they want to subject all citizens and of which they themselves are not absolutely convinced." "Vox is the only animal that stumbles twice on the same stone, also knowing that they will be deceived and knowing that neither of them is trustworthy," he ironized.
In this regard, he warned that among the "certainties" of a document "full of ambiguities" signed by PP and Vox is that the government model of the next Executive is outside the Statute of Autonomy, collides with the Spanish Constitution, deviates from the European Union's Declaration of Fundamental Rights, and conflicts with the Charter of Human Rights.
He added, moreover, that the future cabinet will be placed outside of Social Dialogue and channels of communication with civil society, and warned that PP and Vox put "at clear risk" citizen participation, while "demonizing and criminalizing unions and employers to permanently monitor them."
Both Alicia Gallego and Ángel Ceña have emphasized that the government agreement does not include specific references to the depopulation problem in Castilla y León, despite the fact that the community presents an average of 324, nor does it contemplate differentiated taxation for particularly affected provinces such as Soria or Zamora. They also criticized that PP and Vox demand infrastructure from the central Government and only dedicate three lines to the regional road network "without detailing absolutely anything."
For his part, the spokesperson for Vox and signatory of the pact urged the opposition groups to read the document carefully in order to debate "about the issues that are truly there," among which he mentioned housing, employment, public services, and the rural environment, which, as he assured, as future first vice president will be "one of the main priorities."
Along the same lines, Leticia García has defended that the PP finds itself "very comfortable" with the "profuse, complete, and broad" agreement reached with Vox, as it addresses "many fundamental axes" for the daily lives of the people of Castile and León and incorporates the commitment to move forward with budgets for the four years of the Legislature.
García has rejected the criticism from parties opposed to the pact, whom she has accused of opposing it "due to script requirements" and of focusing "only" on their interests and priorities, while they "lie and falsify reality," in direct allusion to Carlos Martínez. "It is embarrassing to hear him talk about the Rule of Law, Democracy, legality, compliance with the law. The truth is that it is embarrassing, it causes secondhand embarrassment to hear them talk in that sense," she asserted.