Feijóo strengthens the Galician core, makes a pact with Madrid and forms an alliance with Andalusia

A Galician fort surrounded by a larger fortress that encompasses the Iberian Peninsula. This could be the description of the leadership that will emerge, following the planned plan, tomorrow from the 21st PP Congress, where Alberto Núñez Feijóo will be acclaimed as leader and invested with the mantle that will carry him, by ballot, to the Moncloa Palace.

The PP president has reorganized the leadership and strengthened the core of loyalists who accompanied him in Galicia and in his new venture in Madrid to keep the party in order. They remain the same, but with a single delegated command, which has been Feijóo's shadow deputy and will now exercise absolute control over the party to keep the machinery oiled for the elections. From a general secretary position reinforced with more organizational functions, Miguel Tellado is a plenipotentiary second-in-command who, after having been the bête noire of the blue bench in Congress, has the mission of taking, this time, the position that two years ago fell four seats short of the PP's reach, which only managed to add Vox.

Along with Tellado, Feijóo's inner circle will continue to be comprised of his chief of staff, Marta Varela; Mar Sánchez, who accompanies the leader at all times as director of outreach and image; Álvaro Pérez, who coordinates the actions of the parliamentary groups—all of whom are members of Congress—and Luis de la Matta, who, while not a member of the steering committee, heads the PP's communications department.

Except for De la Matta, who was born in Madrid although he has spent a good part of his professional career in the Xunta, the hard core is, therefore, entirely Galician, which underlines – ironically, sources from Génova from other parts of Spain – the proverbial distrust of the people of Celtic roots who live in the Finisterre peninsula, whose ambiguity when it comes to saying whether they are going up or down the stairs is also a joke.

Alma Ezcurra, who coordinated Reformismo21, a think tank created by Feijóo as a counterweight to José María Aznar's FAES and chaired by Josep Piqué from its founding until his death, has been called into that secretive circle that Cuca Gamarra, who is leaving the general secretary's office to take charge of the justice department, has failed to enter.

The Madrid MEP, in turn, will serve as a liaison with the Madrid People's Party (PP), chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, with whom Génova's relations, despite sharing headquarters, are not always exemplary. Other Madrid residents will include Noelia Núñez, who will continue; Jaime de los Santos, who joins after having fought in Congress against the Minister of Equality; and Alberto Nadal, who had been Secretary of State under Mariano Rajoy, whom Feijóo, who has shown complicity with the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, is bringing back to deal with the economy.

The PP is reviving Alberto Nadal, who was previously Secretary of State under Mariano Rajoy, for the economic area.

Nadal's arrival displaces Juan Bravo, one of the two Andalusians, along with Elías Bendodo, from the management committee, to the finance department, which he previously held as a regional councilor. This also leads to the departure of Madrid native Paloma Martín, who drafted the housing plan that the PP wants to implement if the polls predict it and she takes over the executive.

Also leaving the Popular Party leadership is Ana Alós from Huesca, who is responsible for the Popular Party's conciliation plan. She is handing over the reins of social policy to Carmen Fúnez, the former deputy secretary of organization, a department that is now part of Tellado's all-powerful secretariat.

The other members of the executive board retain their positions, with Borja Sémper as spokesperson, while Dolors Montserrat, the only Catalan, will be appointed by Feijóo, who has the power, in a presidential party like the PP, to appoint the members of his team. Thus, the EPP general secretary, who was already on the executive board when she was spokesperson in Brussels (now Esteban González Pons), will continue to sit in the Génova command room, with direct communication from the PP spokesperson in Barcelona, ​​Daniel Sirera.

The other two parliamentary spokespersons, Alicia García (Senate) and Ester Muñoz (Congress), who was the deputy secretary of education and health and whose projection has now been boosted by assuming the vacancy left by Tellado in the Lower House, are from Castilla y León, the community presided over by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, one of the regional leaders, along with Fernando López Miras from Murcia, who are closest to Feijóo.

Among the other barons, the Andalusian Juanma Moreno is gaining weight, having taken charge as the primus inter pares of his four editors to ensure that the political report, to which the president of the PP of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, had raised several objections (relating to the relationship with forces that subvert the constitutional spirit, such as Junts), did not rock the boat that was desired for the conclave and that has been achieved.

In addition to the diplomacy and good manners of Moreno and María Guardiola, from Extremadura, who participated in the presentation of the statutes, is the Galician Alfonso Rueda, who inherited Feijóo's legacy and seeks to leave his own mark on the Xunta, following the long shadow of his mentor. And if they are the ones most in tune with the leader, the one who is rapidly fading from the orbit is Carlos Mazón, from Valencia. Yesterday, he arrived at Pavilion 10 of the Madrid Trade Fair (Ifema), where the congress is being held, hurrying to avoid journalists.

After the triumphant procession of the national conclave, the PP has yet to resolve the Valencian issue.

After the triumphant march that Feijóo, by contrast, staged, resolving the crisis of the People's Party (PP) in the Valencian Community, one of his traditional strongholds, remains the major unfinished business.