The conservative Popular Party of Spain seeks its refoundation

USPA NEWS - The conservative Popular Party celebrates this weekend in Madrid its National Convention, a meeting "which is a good opportunity to strengthen our ideological and programmatic project" for local and regional elections to be held on May 26. And it coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of the refounding of the party. It is also the first congress held after the loss of the Government of Spain in June 2018 and the first one by Pablo Casado as leader of the Spanish conservatives.

Casado sent a letter to the delegates and militants of the Popular Party, in which he calls for self-criticism. "The Spanish are not finding in any of their political parties, always or now, a political offer around which to build a sufficiently large project, a national agenda capable of adding the legitimate aspirations of a broad, integrating and cohesive majority." And then he explains: "The fracture and polarization, the divisions, the lack of shared experiences of life and also events that clearly exceed our borders, are leading our country to an inverse process to which we played a leading role during our Transition."

The Convention "is the prelude for Pablo Casado to govern and we are not hostages of coup-plotters and pro-ETA [defenders of Basque terrorism]," said the Deputy Secretary of Communication and candidate for the Presidency of the government of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso. During the first day of the meeting, the former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was proud of the work done by his Cabinet and said he would "repeat without hesitation." Rajoy was greeted with shouts of "president, president!" and alerted the delegates against the danger of sectarianism, appealing to his party not to fall into them.

On Saturday, the former Conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who during the last years has been very critical of the Popular Party leaders, intervenes. The German Conservative MEP Manfred Weber, favorite to succeed Jean Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission, also attends the Spanish Conservatives Convention. And Adolfo SuarezYllana, son of the first democratic president of the Spanish Government, the late Adolfo Suarez, who led the transition from dictatorship to democracy, drew loud applause from the delegates during his speech before the Plenary.