Secret emergency meeting between Pablo Casado and Isabel Díaz Ayuso to stop the total open war in the PP for the management of payments to the brother of the Madrid president by a company that contracted with the Community of Madrid. The president of the PP convened the meeting at the national headquarters on Génova Street on Friday afternoon, but the appointment has not transpired until this Saturday after two in the afternoon. In a brief statement, the leadership of the PP assures that it regrets the events of the last few days and will continue to defend, together with all the militants, the best future project for Spain”. Meanwhile, sources from Puerta del Sol brand the meeting as “unsuccessful” .
Ayuso vs Casado: chronology of a war
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Hardly any details have emerged about what happened on that date, which was not reported to the media. After remaining silent throughout the morning and keeping the official agenda blank, not only for Ayuso but also for the advisers of his Government who usually schedule activities every weekend, the president’s entourage waited for the statement from the PP’s national leadership to point out that there was no progress in that meeting. According to these same sources, Casado would have asked the Madrid president to “say in a statement that she had not been investigated by the PP.” “In exchange, she raised the file,” she adds. “Unsuccessful” is the adjective they have used to explain the appointment at the national headquarters of the PP.
The meeting takes place in the midst of a climate of great tension among the popular ranks and with constant calls from the rest of the regional barons to put an end to the crisis as soon as possible. The president of the Xunta de Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on whom some eyes are set in the PP, had defended Ayuso the day before, with whom he does not have a great personal harmony, and has advocated that the problems be resolved ” intelligently, not by starting a fire. His criticism of Casado’s leadership did not stop there and the Galician president pointed directly to the number two of the party, Teodoro García Egea, whom other leaders point to as the main person responsible for this crisis.
Other party heavyweights have also conveyed to the national leadership the need to end the war.
The appointment in Genoa took place a few hours after Casado estimated at 286,000 euros that Tomás Ayuso, the brother of the head of the regional Executive, charged for “receiving masks” and that he raised, “beyond the fact that it is illegal”, if it is “understandable that on April 1, 2020, when 700 people died in Spain, they can contract with your sister and receive 300,000 euros for selling masks”. The Madrid president acknowledges the payment, although she estimates the reduction to 55,850 euros for that contract and three other invoices that she does not quantify and that she relates to different jobs for the company, owned by a mutual friend of both brothers.
The objective of the meeting was to address the internal crisis that threatens to blow up the party and in which there are movements of territorial leaders who indicate that Casado should dismiss his number two, Teodoro García Egea despite the fact that Casado himself has publicly defended the same theses as the secretary general. In fact, the president of the party assured that the award by finger that revealed elDiario.es It was not only a legal problem, but also a moral one.
The president of Madrid, involved these days in clarifying these payments, has justified that it was an amount of 55,850 euros “for the steps taken to obtain the material” and, although she acknowledges that there are three other payments from the company Priviet Sportive to Tomás AyusoHe refuses to detail them.
Casado, for his part, downplayed the fact that the award of this contract and the payment to the president’s brother is legal and focused yesterday on the exemplary field. “I would not allow my brother to charge 300,000 euros for a contract decided in the council of ministers,” said the opposition leader in an interview at Cope, in which he justified an internal investigation of Ayuso to find out if there was “trafficking of influences” in the award of that contract and suspecting that Daniel Alcázar, the family friend who took the contract, may have acted as a “figurehead” for Tomás Ayuso.
“It is necessary that there be previous processes before the Justice acts so that any official can act and avoid a case of corruption,” Casado said on Friday. The day before her, Ayuso had accused him of persecuting her “cruelly” for wanting to preside over the Madrid PP.
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