He was nicknamed by his peers mr wolf to later become “the great traitor” of Ciudadanos. The name of Fran Hervías has been anathema in the formation of Inés Arrimadas since she decided to go to the PP to collaborate in a fierce hostile takeover bid against her former party at the hands of Teodoro García Egea, former general secretary and number two of Pablo Casado, who signed him for that purpose. But the fall of both also dragged him down and on April 1 the conservative formation, already led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, sent him the dismissal letter. the news was advanced by ABC a few days before the popular held the extraordinary congress with which they put an end to their serious internal crisis. Hervías then chose to deny it on Twitter.
He also denied it to several media outlets, including elDiario.es. But mostly through State of alarm, Javier Negre’s Internet television, in which he described his dismissal as “hoax” and “Fake news”.
Reality, however, set in a few days later. Although the former secretary of the Organization of Citizens had tried to save himself, without success, from the burning. In fact, shortly after the conflict broke out between the old leadership of Genoa and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, on account of one of the contracts granted in the midst of a pandemic to a company linked to his brother Tomás, for the that he charged commissions of more than 200,000 euros, Hervías called for “unity and strength” from the PP, a party he had rushed to join. It was February 22 and the worst was yet to come.
On April 11, the landing of the new leadership with the Galician at the helm opened the new stage in the Casado party and the continuity of Hervías did not enter into the new plans of his successor. In the end, the job was done. Citizens had suffered a hemorrhage with leaked resignations dropper and some of their charges had sought refuge in the PP.
“He had a very bad time. He was very upset,” some of his former colleagues now say, those who still have dealings with him. On the contrary, there were many who received with delight the abrupt end in the PP of the almighty Secretary of Organization of Albert Rivera.
A controversial path
There is abundant journalistic literature on Hervías’ career and the controversies it has generated. the nickname of mr wolf He earned it for his relentless and expeditious way of solving the internal conflicts that arose every two times three in Ciudadanos. During the years that he lasted in office, disciplinary proceedings were the order of the day and many led to expulsion. And no one knew the guts of the party better than him: he knew how to manage the primaries and was one of the few leaders who controlled the real number of members and militants registered in a census that has always been the great mystery of Ciudadanos. To his credit, he has been the architect of the expansion of Ciudadanos throughout the national territory, a task that was not easy and that reinforced him internally.
But his influence lasted until the November 2019 elections, when Albert Rivera resigned after leaving 10 deputies to a party that just a few months before, in April, had won 57 seats and dreamed of taking Casado by surprise, to whom he had given everything power in the municipal and regional elections that same year. Hervías did not get a seat, nor did most of the main leaders of Ciudadanos.
The departure of the founder took away many of the leaders of that initial structure that Hervías had been weaving during his six years at the head of the Organization. He waited. Little, but he waited. On March 13, 2021, he gave the bell and announced that he was leaving the formation already led by Inés Arrimadas, also renouncing his act as senator. He did it on his Twitter profile by linking to a letter explaining his motives. Among others, that he believed that Ciudadanos “had become part of the problem, not the solution”, and accusing the new leader of having lost “liberal values and principles” to lead the party to be “another crutch of sanchismo “.
That same day, in an interview with El Mundo, he revealed that he was going to the PP. And he did it with all his baggage and a bulky agenda, which, according to what Edmundo Bal accused him of, served him to “open ‘box B’ and pay whatever it takes to buy members of Ciudadanos.”
The adventure, however, has not lasted long. Now, repudiated by his party and fired by Feijóo, Hervías remains silent. Virtually nothing has been heard from him since the attempt to deny the news on ABC, which sent him to unemployment. Some of his former colleagues and even friends say that he continues with his communication consulting firm that he opened years ago to advise executives and politicians.
According to revealed the Spanish and then confirmed elDiario.es, the former secretary of Organization had used La Fábrica de Discursos, the company created by the then deputy spokesman for Citizens in the Andalusian Parliament, Fran Carrillo (who was later succeeded as regional senator), to invoice the municipal groups of Ciudadanos and encourage party leaders to hire his services to advise them on communication and oratory. All this when he still held his seat in the Upper House, to which he did not report this activity or request compatibility, as he was obliged.
But Hervías’ silence may have its days numbered. In his environment they admit that he is preparing a book that could be a “political bomb”. As this newsroom has been able to learn, the former secretary of the Citizens’ Organization has decided to resume the book that he already had in mind more than two years ago about his party, as he then confessed to some journalists after one of the founders of this formation, the Balearic Xavier Pericay, will illuminate ‘Let’s go?’an explosive book in which he recounted the ins and outs of the internal fights of the Rivera era and criticized precisely the forms of mr wolf“cutting off heads and everything that happened”.
“That the result was often the devastation of the party in a certain enclave, did not bother him in the least.” “Like the forest after a fire, it would grow again. The important thing was to cut to the chase and put an end to toxicity –to stick to the jargon in vogue in the party–”, affirmed Pericay, who clarified below: “Of course, only Hervías was empowered to decide who was toxic and who was not. . In the same way that only he knew who should be promoted to a position of responsibility and who should not”.
That book reported that Hervías did not want to sign Cayetana Alvárez de Toledo because she could have overshadowed Rivera. These considerations did not please Hervías who, without quoting him, described them as “lies” and warned that “the time to speak” would soon come.
Nobody ever heard of that Hervías project. But now leaders who remain in contact with him take it for granted that this book will see the light of day very soon, predictably this fall. And according to the same sources, the one who was Rivera’s strong man will not be limited to telling anecdotes or episodes only from the past. “It is going to be a powerful book, in which he is going to tell everything. It will cause a stir”, announce these sources who assure that Hervías also includes in it his version of the hostile takeover bid for Citizens and his landing in the PP.
This newsroom has wanted to talk to Hervías so that he could give more details about his project, but the former leader of Ciudadanos does not answer calls or answer messages.
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