The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, began this Monday to put heat on a negative vote from his party in the “first investiture”, as he called it, of the PP candidate for the Presidency of Extremadura, María Guardiola. Although it has not expressly announced the nohas practically taken it for granted when he assured: “It is difficult, when the agreement has been torpedoed during all these weeks, to reach a last-minute agreement on this investiture or this attempted investiture that will occur immediately.” And he added: “Whatever the result of this first investiture, our hand remains extended, our will to build an alternative is firm.”
Guardiola will give his investiture speech this Tuesday before the Extremaduran Assembly, where the PP has 29 of the 65 seats. In the first vote, this Wednesday, it requires an absolute majority to be invested, which is why it needs 11 votes from Vox; while in the second, on Friday, a simple majority is enough, which it would have if the ultra deputies abstained. However, Vox has already ruled out abstaining if there is no agreement that seems distant, so everything indicates that as of March 4, the two-month period for a second investiture will open, for which Guardiola could appear again if he gets the support of Vox.
This Wednesday, Abascal insisted on downplaying the importance of a negative vote from his party, for fear that it could take its toll in Castilla y León, which is holding its own elections on the 15th. The leader of Vox has insisted that “we should not rush into agreements. The important thing is that they are firm, that they are solid and that there are guarantees of compliance. It is not so important to arrive within a specific deadline for an investiture.” What he has warned is that his party did not leave the Castilian and Leonese government, in July 2024, “to invest (now) a government that does exactly the same and that is dedicated to promoting the immigration invasion or collaborating with Pedro Sánchez in the distribution of illegal immigration.” Two months after the Extremaduran elections, PP and Vox agreed on February 23 to reset negotiations that were bogged down and start from scratch, putting aside the distribution of positions and ministries for a second phase and beginning with the discussion of the government program, with the intervention of the national leadership of the PP.
In Almazán (Soria), which he has visited as part of his campaign for the regional elections, he has tried to neutralize the appeal to the useful vote of the popular leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “There is no risk that the left will govern Castilla y León,” he assured. “The Socialist Party will not be able to reach any agreement with anyone (to come to power), unless it makes an agreement with the PP,” he added sarcastically. His message is that voters can choose the ballot they like best, without fear that the left will benefit from the division of the right’s vote. It remains to be seen if this argument works in provinces like Soria, where the PP would have taken a seat from the PSOE if it added the votes that Vox received, which did not obtain any deputies.
