The president of the PP and candidate for the Presidency of the Government, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, intends to consolidate and expand his current advantage ahead of the general elections by fully involving his mayors in the campaign, with the idea that the entire party is “plugged in,” according to sources from the formation who spoke to Europa Press. To do so, he has incorporated 236 council members into the candidacies for the Congress and the Senate, including 17 of provincial capitals and major municipalities.
At the top of ‘Génova,’ they argue that activating their municipal leaders makes it easier for the PP’s message to penetrate the entire territory and reach more citizens, since mayors and councillors constitute the closest administration to the neighbor and Feijóo wants to exploit his “pull” at the ballot box, the same sources point out.
“Our is a party of mayors, of mayors who are a benchmark for management, a benchmark for public service, for solving people’s problems. And that’s why Feijóo wanted mayors and alderwomen from our party to have a prominent and significant presence on the PP lists,” Miguel Tellado recalled on Thursday at a rally together with two Congress top candidates for Madrid who are alderwomen, Rocío García and Lucía Fernández, councillors of Alcobendas and San Sebastián de los Reyes.
Feijóo’s team, which maintains its goal of governing alone even though the polls point to the possibility that it might require an agreement with Vox, believes that mayors will take on a determining role in mobilizing the electorate, explain sources from the party.
“So we have the plugged-in mayors,” the PP’s national leadership summarizes, boasting of its extensive territorial presence: it controls more than 3,400 town halls, more than 40% of the total, and governs in 11 of the 17 autonomous communities.
Mayors in the front line on November 29
With this approach, the PP leadership has outlined a strategy in which councillors will be the protagonists in the general elections on November 29. In total, 236 mayors have been included on the popular lists for the Courts.
Among them are the municipal leaders of six provincial capitals. Three will join the Congress Popular Group: María José Catalá (Valencia), Carlos Velázquez (Toledo), and Pilar Miranda (Huelva). The other three will move on to the Senate: Gema Igual (Santander), Jesús Julio Carnero (Valladolid), and Enma Buj (Teruel).
The Statutes of the PP establish that the status of deputy is "incompatible" with the position of mayor in municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, although they contemplate exceptions authorized by the National Executive Committee. Within this framework, that body approved last week that 17 mayors of localities with more than 20,000 inhabitants may simultaneously hold the mayoralty and the seat in the next legislature.
Indecisive voters, young voters and the socialist vote base
In the PP they are convinced that their municipal figures can prove decisive in attracting undecided voters who have not yet cast a ballot, contain the exodus of votes to Vox and even add new support. More than 1.6 million young people who have reached the age of majority will be able to vote for the first time in these elections.
During the three weeks of the pre-campaign following Pedro Sánchez’s announcement of advancing the general election, at the PP’s national headquarters they consider that the incorporation of new voters and outreach in the traditional PSOE space is already taking place, something that, according to their internal 'trackings', would have intensified after the railway tragedy in Urda.
This was stated publicly by Feijóo when he said that his party "has gone from less to more" and is managing to add abstainers, who are voting in the ballot boxes for the first time, and part of the electorate that "has been coming to trust" in "Spanish social democracy". "I honestly believe that there will be a better result at the ballot box," the leader of the PP emphasized.