The president of Partido Popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has placed the revaluation of pensions among the commitments of his political project and has claimed the general elections of next 29 November as an opportunity to open a new stage in Spain. During a rally held this Saturday in Valladolid, the popular leader appealed to the everyday concerns of citizens and has focused on the purchasing power of families, the difficulties young people face in accessing housing, and the living conditions of older people.
Feijóo has argued that politics must abandon permanent confrontation and return to focusing on the problems of citizens. "It's time for politics to talk about people again," he said to those attending, in a speech in which he set his Government proposal against what he considers years of "show, of scandal, of arrest after arrest, of case file after case file."
The popular leader said that his party wants to move on from that dynamic and focus on management. "The show is over, the networks are over, the shamelessness is over, now it's time to work," he proclaimed. In that context, he claimed 29N as the date to begin a new political cycle. "The 29th of November is the date. That day we will put an end to the torment and we will finally say that a new stage starts," he said.
The request of a victim from Urda: "Put people who know in key positions"
One of the central moments of the speech was the account of a meeting that Feijóo held this week with one of the victims of the railway accident in Urda. As he explained, the person affected asked to meet with him privately in order to convey a request related to safety and responsibility in the management of infrastructure.
The president of the PP has said that the man came accompanied by his wife and still had visible injuries on his forehead. During the conversation, he conveyed the deep pain he was going through and made a specific request: "I just want to ask you to put people who know in key positions because our safety depends on it." Feijóo has used that testimony to question the situation of public services and citizens' trust in institutions. "What country have we become so that a citizen who has gone through something so tragic feels the need to ask for something so basic?" he asked.
The Popular Party leader has added that the victim also conveyed to him the despair that, in his opinion, exists among part of the citizenry and the need for politics to offer an alternative. Feijóo has taken on that commitment and has ensured that his party has the obligation to demonstrate that there is a political way out. "Sadness is not at odds with hope," he has argued, before insisting that the PP must offer an alternative that makes it possible to recover trust in institutions.
The leader wanted to distance the Valladolid event from a call focused exclusively on the railway accident. He explained that the rally had been planned for some time and noted that, if the objective had been only to point to the political person responsible for the situation of the infrastructure, the PP would have held the event in front of the Palacio de la Moncloa. However, he blamed Sánchez’s government for the infrastructure situation and for the security problems that his party denounces.
Young people, pensions, and families that don’t make ends meet
Feijóo devoted a good part of his speech to the economic difficulties of households and to the problems affecting different generations. The PP president has pointed out that the main economic problem for many families is the loss of purchasing power and the difficulty of maintaining conditions of dignified living.
"The main economic problem today is that most families don’t make ends meet," he said. The leader mentioned the cost of the grocery basket and the price of fuel as two of the concerns that condition household economics.
The Popular Party leader has also placed young people among the priority groups of his speech. Feijóo denounced the difficulties in becoming independent and accessing housing, and argued that the new generations must have opportunities to develop their life projects without depending economically on their families. "Young people, you have the right to eat the world, but it is not possible to eat the world from the room in your parents’ house," he said.
At this point, he has taken the opportunity to praise the Government of Castilla y León’s housing policy and has highlighted the commitment to deliver one thousand homes in Valladolid. Housing is thus added to one of the axes of the popular discourse for 29N, in a context marked by difficulties in accessing the real estate market and youth emancipation. At the same time, Feijóo has asserted the need to look after older people and has introduced the revaluation of pensions among the commitments of his political alternative. The leader has argued that the protection of those who have reached retirement age must be part of the priorities of any Government project.
Ceuta and the criticisms of the Executive’s foreign policy
The speech also reserved space for the situation in Ceuta and relations with Morocco. Feijóo has recalled the events recorded at the border and has denounced that, months later, there are still issues which, as he has said, the Government has not clarified sufficiently.
The PP leader has assured that more than 100,000 people entered during those events and has accused Moroccan agents of organizing the movements at the border. He has also criticized the attitude of the Spanish Executive toward Morocco and has questioned that the Government congratulates the neighboring country while, in his view, issues related to border security are still pending. "I’m not going to forget a single day, and I won’t stop until that part of Spain and that part of Europe recovers normality," he has assured.
With these references, Feijóo has expanded the framework of his speech beyond infrastructure and domestic economy, also incorporating foreign policy and territorial security among the matters he intends to place in the electoral debate. In this way, the PP president has closed an intervention structured around the need to recover trust in institutions, improve living conditions for families, and offer an alternative Government on next November 29.