The PP candidate for the Presidency of the Junta de Extremadura, María Guardiola, closed her speech in the investiture debate requesting the support of the Extremadura Assembly to be elected president. In return, she has offered “four years of stability, dialogue, and collective ambition,” in which she has committed to guaranteeing “transparency and rigor” and to maintaining a “breathable tone for all.” The PP has said that Vox has advanced its "no" to investing María Guardiola as president of the Junta de Extremadura this Friday, although it trusts that she "reconsiders in the coming hours."
The second vote for her investiture will take place this Friday after Guardiola did not obtain the required absolute majority in the first vote, held this past Wednesday, in which the candidate for investiture only counted on the votes in favor of the PP (29 deputies), while the rest of the parties (PSOE, Vox and Unidas por Extremadura) voted against.
The session will start at 14:00 hours of this in the Assembly of Extremadura, 48 hours after the first vote, and in it, the PP candidate will now need a simple majority of the Chamber to be invested president of the Junta de Extremadura.
The proposal of Guardiola
"I offer you a government that listens, that corrects when it makes a mistake and that does not hide when it's time to make difficult decisions," Guardiola stressed at the end of her speech, in which she has claimed the trust of the deputies of the autonomous Chamber "to continue building an Extremadura that works."
His speech, of approximately one hour, concluded with a prolonged ovation from the PP parliamentarians, who stood up in the chamber. On the contrary, the representatives of PSOE, Vox and Unidas por Extremadura remained seated and without applauding.
Facing the “times of confusion and discredit of institutions” and “facing corruption, lies and the politics of walls”, María Guardiola has defended that Extremadura must “take the opposite path”.
Although she has acknowledged that she has “heard too many times” the rejection of the groups, she has encouraged the deputies to “dare with a yes”, which will be a “yes to an Extremadura proud of itself”, after which she has committed to being “the president of all. Also of those who did not vote for me and will never vote for me”. In this vein, she has maintained that “citizenship got tired of walls” and “wants a useful and effective politics”.
Guardiola calls to combat anti-politics
In his speech, he insisted that the Extremadura Assembly “has to demonstrate that it serves, that it is useful, that it will not be used as a shortcut or for personal interests,” and d, the one that feeds on noise and contempt.” In his opinion, this drift can only be faced “with general interest, with dialogue, with rapprochement of positions and with humility.”
Along these same lines, it has stressed that “here one comes to work for the people of Extremadura, not to blow up paths and agreements”, and that the objective must be “to work hand in hand for the future of this land, for its people and for the generations that will come after”.
Guardiola has asked the deputies to assume the importance of their work and of the decisions they adopt: “We are here to understand each other, to answer to the people of Extremadura, and to manage with cleanliness,” he has affirmed.
The leader of the PP has maintained that during the last legislature her government has “demonstrated that another way of governing was possible”, based on “less noise, more work” and “fewer headlines, more results”. Therefore, she has urged those present to “think about Extremadura”.
“May this land, which needs it so much, be a parenthesis amidst so much confusion,” the popular candidate has asked, convinced that the Extremadura Assembly “is committed to stability and to a project that has already proven to work, Extremadura will continue to advance with a firm step,” she has assured.
“Almaraz is not closing”: defense of the nuclear power plant
In another part of her speech, María Guardiola has claimed the continuity of the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant and Extremadura's right “to industrial development, with ambition, with more employment and with more future”.
The PP candidate has defended that “nuclear energy is not the past”, but rather that “it is the present and it is the future”, and that it constitutes “an essential lever for Extremadura to be at the forefront of the digital and energy revolution that Europe is facing”.
“Almaraz does not close,” Guardiola has reiterated, recalling that Unidas por Extremadura and the PSOE of Extremadura “voted for it to close” and “in favor of sending the people of Extremadura to the street,” something he has harshly censored.
In this context, he/she has reproached that both formations "miserably" supported decisions in Congress "in favor of impoverishing their families" and "against the future of this land."