Feijóo had a plan. Her goal of him? Muddy the only debate – there has not been more because the PP candidate refused – and thus avoid any type of contrast of ideas that could harm him. Stop the comeback from the left, even if it was with ankle kicks. Avoid the slightest electoral attrition, at a time when the Popular Party leads the polls, but with less leeway than the right would like.
A debate, on the other hand, to forget. Where more has been said about ETA than about the climate crisis, health or education. It started out very hard and then it didn’t improve.
For an uninformed citizen, Feijóo’s plan probably worked. Because for someone who did not have the context or the data, the impression that the PP leader has given has been that of a more confident, more solid, more forceful politician than his rival. A leader who has been seen to be less nervous than the president he wants to throw out, who did not know how to defend himself in the mud. The background is something else: what Feijóo has said and his complex relationship with the truth
Alberto Núñez Feijóo: “We had a State pact (against gender violence). We had all signed it, all except Podemos”.
False. It’s just the other way around. The only party that is not in that State pact is Vox, we cannot. Something easy to imagine, taking into account that Vox even denies that sexist violence exists and even leaves the minute of silence every time a woman is killed.
Feijóo: “The PP has voted in favor of the increase in pensions by the CPI”.
False. He voted against.
Feijóo to Sánchez: “What happened to the Pegasus? With the mobile? What information do they have about you? (…) Today the judge has closed the case due to your lack of cooperation”.
False. The judge has closed the investigation, and I quote, for the “absolute lack of cooperation from Israel.”
Feijóo: Between 2018 and 2019, more than 2,500 subsidized homes in Galicia were classified.
False. There were only a dozen. And in the last ten years of Feijóo at the head of the Xunta, barely 300 in total.
Feijóo: “Spain is the last country to recover its pre-pandemic GDP with the Czech Republic”.
Fake. Germany is today below the GDP of before the pandemic, and Spain is not. And in the first quarter, Spain had year-on-year growth of 4.2%: four times more than the EU average. While Germany is in recession.
Feijóo: “I am not going to repeal the Iberian exception, the European Union is going to repeal it.”
False. The European Union has extended this mechanism until December 31, 2023 –one year less than what Spain was asking for–, but Brussels has never proposed repealing this measure, which has already meant savings of 5,000 million euros for consumers Spanish people.
Feijóo: “I am the president of an autonomous community that has least increased the debt of all of Spain.”
False. Feijóo came to the Xunta with a debt of 6.8% of GDP -3,594 million- and left it at 18.5% -11,175 million euros-. Compared to the others, Galicia has more debt than a dozen autonomous communities. And there are only 17 autonomies.
Feijóo: “You cannot govern by losing.”
False. In a parliamentary system –like the Spanish one– the one who gets the most support governs, not the list with the most votes. That is why in 2019 Ayuso governed in Madrid losing to Ángel Gabilondo, or Juanma Moreno governed in her first legislature in Andalusia losing to Susana Díaz. Or José Luis Martínez Almeida in the city of Madrid, losing in 2019 against Manuela Carmena.
Feijóo: “We will not govern by losing.”
False. María Guardiola will govern losing. And the PP governs with Vox in dozens of municipalities throughout Spain –such as Burgos, such as Elche, such as Valladolid– where it did not win the elections either.
This Tuesday the investiture debate begins in the Canary Islands. Where Fernando Clavijo (Canary Coalition) will govern with the support of the PP, against the candidate with the most votes, which was Ángel Victor Torres, of the PSOE.
Feijóo: “You were a director of a bank and you broke it. You also went bankrupt, Caja Madrid”.
False. And of all the lies with which Feijóo has muddied the electoral debate, this has probably been the most obscene. And the most toxic. Because every hoax is always based on half a gram of truth.
Pedro Sánchez was never on the Board of Directors of Caja Madrid. Never.He was part of the General Assembly during his time as councilor of the Madrid City Council, a body with 323 members where all the municipalities of the region, including the capital, were represented. There the members of the PSOE painted even less than an opposition deputy in the parliament of the Community of Madrid, where Ayuso has an absolute majority.
Who led Caja Madrid during the two decades that led to its bankruptcy was , alone, the Popular Party. First Miguel Blesa, Aznar’s friend. Then Rodrigo Rato, Aznar’s vice president.
The collapse of Bankia –where Caja Madrid merged with several of the savings banks controlled by the PP– has ended up costing the Spanish more than 25,000 million euros.
Feijóo: “A director of Caja Madrid giving lessons to the president of the Xunta about the financial problem of savings banks. He is the world upside down.”
The PP candidate also had a very relevant role in the management of Galician savings banks as president of the Xunta, it is true. But with a result that was not to brag about. Feijóo led its merger into a single entity, arguing that it would be more solvent that way. The Xunta even paid a million euros to the KPMG consultancy for a report that defended this merger as the best option. The result was just the opposite: the merged savings bank, NovaCaixaGalicia, ended up bankrupt. That pufo cost the Spanish more than 9,000 million euros, of which only 1,000 were recovered. And an order from the National Court pointed to the Xunta as responsible for this bankruptcy, for its efforts to include Caixa Galicia in the merger.
Much has been said about the famous photo of Feijóo with the narco Marcial Dorado. He’s not the only convicted felon he’s had his picture taken with.
In this photo, from 2010, the current leader of the PP poses with the main executives of the Galician savings banks, in the handshake with which they celebrated this ruinous merger. From left to right, they are José Luis Méndez (Caixa Galicia), Julio Fernández Gayoso (Caixanova), Alberto Núñez Feijóo (president of the Xunta de Galicia), Mauro Varela (Caixa Galicia) and José Luis Pego (Caixanova).
The second and fifth ended up in jail: Gayoso and Pego. For misappropriation. According to the ruling, these and other executives carried out “unequivocal acts of appropriation for private profit” and not “mere excesses or abuses.” Gayoso, for example, awarded himself compensation of seven million euros.
The first, José Luis Méndez, the Caixa Galicia factotum, narrowly escaped this criminal process: his box was so bad that he was fired from the Bank of Spain just as the merger was closed. It was released just in time. He was lucky enough to turn 65 at the time and walked away with an $18 million retirement severance.
The fourth, Méndez’s successor, Mauro Varela, had to resign after saying that the clients who bought preferences knew what they were doing. Until he was appointed president of Caixa Galicia in 2001 – the bank that went bankrupt – Mauro Varela had not had the slightest experience or training in the financial sector. His resume of him for this position? He had been a deputy of the PP
All of them received millions in salaries and indemnities while they were rescued with public money. Not even the managers who were sentenced returned all the money they took from the bankrupt boxes. José Luis Pego, for example, was left with a pension fund of 10.8 million euros. He only served nine months in prison.
As for Feijóo –the fifth Beatle of the bankruptcy of the Galician boxes– well, you can already imagine what happened. He never apologized to the Galicians for that ruinous operation. Seeing him now blame Sánchez for the bankruptcy of the savings banks is the best summary of this terrible electoral debate. An exercise in cynicism that is very difficult to overcome.
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