The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has ruled out this Friday getting into the “nominal” debate about whether specific ministries of Housing and Equality should exist, after the words of the PP leader and candidate for La Moncloa, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in an interview with the 'podcaster' Jordi Wild. In the face of that discussion, he has predicted that his president will “multiply the policies” in these areas.
“What needs to be done is to strengthen Equality and Housing policies. More important than a ministry is not to commit fraud, investigated by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, involving the anti-domestic-violence bracelets. And in order to strengthen equality policies it is essential that your right hand not be Ábalos or Koldo, or that there hadn’t been a person from Ferraz getting into the act when he was coming out of the bathroom, like Mr. Salazar,” he argued during an electoral walk in A Coruña.
Accompanied by the PPdeG secretary general, Paula Prado, the provincial president, Diego Calvo, and the PP leader in the city, Miguel Lorenzo, Almeida stressed that “to strengthen equality policies the best thing is not the debate about the ministry, but about the policies.”
In this sense, he pointed out that “some” choose to focus the discussion “on whether there has to be a ministry” because “they don’t want to debate, nor defend their policies on equality,” given that “it is very difficult to defend what concerns the anti-domestic-violence bracelets or the ‘yes is yes’ law.”
As for housing, he considered that the same thing is repeated. “What is this Government going to tell us when the main problem for Spaniards was the sixteenth problem when Sánchez came into Government?” he asked, accusing the Executive of “making it worse” and of having generated “a very serious supply problem.”
As he indicated, this situation occurs “because there is no new housing,” but also because “the rental market has collapsed.” For this reason, he said he “understands” that the left and Pedro Sánchez prefer to take the discussion to whether “there has to be an administrative structure or real policies.”
“We are the ones who defend that the nominal is not so important as that there be serious and effective policies,” he reiterated, before emphasizing that “what there is, is to ask the women in Spain whether they are more protected or less protected” after Sánchez’s term in La Moncloa. “We are at alarming figures for women victims of gender-based violence and not a single word is said about that,” he reproached.
Criticism of the "ministries to place the friends"
"And housing is the main problem. What I have clear is that Feijóo what he does not want is to multiply administrative structures, but policies. And housing and equality policies will be multiplied with the Government of Feijóo. Another thing is that some would rather have ministries in order to place the friends," he added.
Almeida believes Feijóo comes out strengthened from the interview
In overall terms, he has assured that his leader has come out strengthened from the conversation with Jordi Wild, in which the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, finally did not participate. "First of all, it is important to say one thing that in Galicia they already know: that Feijóo when he makes a commitment, he fulfills it. He had made the commitment, he went and he subjected himself to all the questions from Jordi Wild," he summarized.
Almeida has recognized that there were questions "in which he could have felt more comfortable and, in others, more uncomfortable," but he has highlighted that "he answered everyone by telling the truth, which is the most important thing that can be done in politics."
Likewise, he has shown himself confident that the interview offers "even more reasons" to support Feijóo and "clears up doubts" for those who keep them about the vision of the PP leader regarding the main problems that Spain is currently going through.