The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, announced this Monday his intention to propose to the PP that his party be part of a coalition government in Castilla y León, once a negotiation on “concrete measures” that “change the course” of the autonomous community is closed.
Abascal has spoken thus at a press conference after the elections this Sunday in which Vox has improved its data compared to the 2022 elections by obtaining one more procurator. With this advance, Vox maintains the same line as after the electoral appointments in Extremadura and Aragon, where the increase in their representation has led them to claim presence in the autonomous governments.
“Feijóo has grown tired of saying that Vox does not want to enter governments, does not want to assume the wear and tear, that it has no courage and that it runs away (...) I have to tell him yes, that Vox has to govern in the three regions,” the Vox leader has stated.
Despite this, Abascal has stressed that, before talking about the distribution of responsibilities, his party and the PP must focus on agreeing on “concrete measures, deadlines for compliance and guarantees” and, only then, they will deal with “the seats”.
The campaign in Castilla y León has unfolded with the open conversations between Vox and the PP in Extremadura and Aragón as a backdrop, although without significant progress. Both parties had already shared coalition governments in these three communities, but Vox decided to break the agreements in 2024 due to differences arising in the management of the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors.
Response to the criticisms of Espinosa de los Monteros
In other news, Abascal has replied to the messages of the former leader of the party Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, who held him responsible for the "stagnation" of the party and for acting from "a bunker". Abascal maintains that these types of reproaches are part of "external attacks" promoted "fundamentally by the PP and by all its media".
"I have already said that I was not talking about soap operas. The only thing I say is that when a party is permanently growing election after election, a party that is doing well and does not have internal attacks and has internal crises, it has external attacks that are moved by our political adversaries and fundamentally by the Popular Party and by all its media," he/she/it has stressed.
These statements were made at the press conference following the meeting of the Political Action Committee, where he was asked about the comments published on the social network X by Espinosa de los Monteros. The former parliamentary spokesperson believes that the Castilla y León elections have evidenced Vox's stagnation, by practically repeating the same results as four years ago, and has called for an internal reflection on the strategy led by Abascal, whom he sees "locked in a bunker".
"In the midst of the right-wing tsunami in the world, Vox has only grown one point and one seat compared to four years ago. Then we started from scratch and had a new candidate (Juan García Gallardo); we had a lot against us, but we had a broad and welcoming party, never without problems, but cohesive and enthusiastic," reflected the current president of the Atenea Foundation.