And the fifth time… Will she be the charm? The PP and Vox have been meeting since nine in the morning this Friday to try to finally reach a government agreement in Extremadura for the next four years with the popular María Guardiola as president.
Almost four months after the Extremaduran elections on December 21 and only 24 days before the deadline – if there is no pact on May 4, Extremadurans will return to the polls – the main leaders of both parties are meeting this Friday in Mérida, as EL PAÍS has learned.
On behalf of the Popular Party, President Guardiola, the Vice President and General Secretary of the Popular Party of Extremadura, Abel Bautista, and Vox, the spokesperson for the party in the region, Óscar Fernández Calle, attended the meeting. National leaders from both groups are also expected to join the call, either electronically or in person.
The last meeting between PP and Vox took place before Easter, on March 25. On that occasion, and for the first time, both parties summoned the press at the Mérida regional Assembly to make statements. “We are optimistic about the future,” said the Extremaduran leader of Vox. “There is progress in some (measures) and in others we have decided to try to reach that point of convergence, because the desire of both parties is for this Government to materialize.”
“There are issues that we can consider more closed and others that still need a little maturity,” said Bautista, the general secretary of the popular Extremadurans, “but in any case it will be a matter of the teams’ work throughout these days.” The conclusion reached by both parties was that of progress in the “programmatic agreement”, but not in the Government.
The reality, however, is that there is still no agreement for the next four years, but there are clues about the coming days. This Thursday, in the weekly plenary session of the regional Parliament, both parties – together they have 40 deputies, 7 more than the absolute majority (33). 30 the PP and 11 Vox. Both parties approved a decree law that relaxes the restrictions that exist when the regional government in Extremadura is in office, as is the case.
The person in charge of defending this decree by the PP was Bautista, vice president and general secretary of the popular party in the region, who said that his party does rule out an electoral repetition. Vox, for its part, wanted to impose its agenda and emphasize that, if there is an agreement, it will be because they want it. “I hope there is a Government, a Vox Government.”
If Guardiola is not sworn in as president on May 4, the electoral repetition calendar is activated and Extremadurans would be called to the polls again in the month of June.
