The political moment of the week was the appearance of Vice President Vicente Barrera, Vox’s highest representative in the Valencian Government, to “move away from the ‘Orgull de Comunitat’” in the Consell campaign presented within the framework of Benidorm Fest. Support of lgtbi groups. It would not be an agreed-upon discrepancy, but it was a discrepancy communicated in a timely manner (Barrera spoke to Carlos Mazón, president and leader of the PP, hours before he made his second official appearance) and communicated with a calibrated effect, accompanied by a calculation of damages. (The following messages were, on the one hand, to deny tensions and ensure good order in the alliance, and, on the other hand, to reject the impeachment of the vice president on the grounds that he was homophobic).
One of Mazón’s slogans as president is that the Government is the same as Botànic’s, unlike before. This week it began to show that he may have two dissenting voices. Time will tell whether the differences will consolidate and grow and whether the two voices will see each other as two governments. For now, Vox is feinting, delivering the blow, softening it, and giving it time to parry. For now, the bullfight is for the living room. After Tuesday’s episode, the partners met again the next day at the Corts arena. Despite the different background, José María Llanos’s debut as spokesman for the ultra party was a quiet one for Mazón. A few hours later they had to vote for the centenary of Vicent Andrés Estellés and agreed to say no to Any Estellés after a PP transaction was concealed. The translation of the facts is that the PP will have no problem celebrating the commemoration, but this issue is not enough to formally disagree with the partner.
The week ends with the Vice President finding that the Spanish music festival in Valencia, which came about with his support, has overshadowed the Presidency’s Benidorm Festival and is not even that. Barrera took this job without objection.
The succession of events shows that the partners respect each other in their fields: social policy comes from the PP (and emphasis is placed on vice-president Susana Camarero), cultural policy comes from Vox, and strategic projects such as the Benidorm festival are under the umbrella of the Presidency and do not touch each other.
The facts also reveal the strategies: Mazón goes out to discuss the field of participation and the banner of diversity on the left (and this includes the Benidorm Festival), but he does not observe, as Estellés does, the possible political harm of allowing the emblem of the cultural heritage to be institutionally forgotten by Valencianism. He probably sees the opposite: protecting the traditional right-wing voters of this land.
The strategic plan is being repeated in the Valencia City Council with the same partners and at the same time gestures of a cultural and identity nature are being made, allowing the far right to play its cards. The difference is in the tone of the ‘social’ inconsistency, where the mayor, María José Catalá, began to feel uncomfortable with the creation of ponds under the Turia, at the insistence of the deputy mayor, Juan Manuel Badenas (Vox). Bridges to drive out the homeless. The question of profile differences between Barrera and Badenas and the question of medium-term leadership of the radical wing of the right.