Alberto Núñez Feijóo has surrounded himself in the Senate with his dome. He looks back, to one side or the other, the faces he will see are those of the leaders who accompany him every Monday at the meeting of the party’s executive. The president of the PP was appointed to the Upper House by the Galician Parliament last May, shortly after succeeding Pablo Casado as leader of the right. It is the only way they found in the national headquarters at number 13 of Madrid’s Calle de Génova to solve a problem in the election of him as Pedro Sánchez’s rival: his absence from Congress, the main state political center. Over the months, most of the new leadership of the party has followed in his footsteps to convert the first rows of the Senate into the refuge of the first circle of power of the PP, which guarantees them closeness to the leader, media visibility, salary public and appraisal before the Supreme Court.
The internal crisis that led to the resignation of Casado last February caused, in addition to the election of Feijóo as president, the almost total renewal of the nucleus of power of the PP, which was divided between the Galician leader and the Andalusian Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla. But the total control that Casado had exercised in the preparation of the 2019 electoral lists meant that the faithful of both were outside the General Courts.
That was one of the first problems that Feijóo had to address when he arrived in Madrid. The solution was taken quickly because it was the only possible one: the Senate. Some of the representatives in the Upper House are elected directly at the polls, but others are selected by the regional parliaments, according to the rules established in the different statutes.
Said and done, after Feijóo, a significant number of members of the Management Committee (the daily decision-making body of the PP and closest to the president), as well as lower levels, have been appointed by their respective regional chambers. The first, the one who was his right-hand man in the Galician PP, Miguel Tellado, and today National Deputy Secretary of Territorial Organization.
After landing in the Senate, Tellado was appointed second vice president of the Transportation Commission, which represents an economic supplement of 1,134.52 euros for 14 payments, in addition to the emoluments per senator (3,050.66 euros for 14) and compensation for displacement (1,958.02 euros for 14) for Senators from constituencies other than Madrid.
In total, Tellado will pocket 86,000 euros a year. 16,000 more than the 70,121 that Feijóo will receive from the Senate, although the presidents of the PP have historically also received a remuneration from the party that is hardly made public except by obligation.
After being elected to the position, Feijóo said he did not know what salary he was going to get. At the moment, the leadership of the PP has not revealed it and they have no intention of doing so, so we will have to wait for the president of the party to leave the Senate to verify it in his income statement, since the one he presented this year when he took office collects only data from 2021, as established by regulations.
Last April, Casado assured in his income statement when leaving Congress that his salary as president of the PP was 54,912 euros. Mariano Rajoy came to declare 200,000 euros a year.
Feijóo and Tellado landed in the Senate in two positions already occupied, but in the PP they do not stitch without thread and sought a destination for those who could not but give up their seat. One, in the Casa de Galicia in Madrid. The other, in the Xunta itself as general secretary of the Second Vice Presidency occupied by Diego Calvo, from A Coruña, chosen in turn by Feijóo for the very important position of president of the Electoral Committee of the national PP, where all the electoral candidacies are established.
Feijóo and Tellado were the Galician figureheads of the Andalusian landing. Two other leaders of the PP assumed their position as senators this past Tuesday after being appointed by the Parliament that emerged from the elections last June, and which provided the absolute majority for Juan Manuel Moreno.
The Andalusian president finished loosening ties with Elías Bendodo, who has been his right-hand man since he took over from Juan Ignacio Zoido at the head of the party. Old acquaintances of the PP of Malaga, Bendodo has been advisor to the Presidency, spokesperson and electoral factotum for Moreno. And now he is the general coordinator of the national PP. An incompatible position for Moreno, with responsibilities in the Andalusian Executive.
Bendodo stood for the Andalusian elections, but the decision had already been made: after being elected senator, he gave up the seat in Seville. This Tuesday the Government control session was released with a question about the hypothetical pardon of the former president of the Andalusian Government, José Antonio Griñán, convicted of the ere case.
With him, another of the mainstays of the Moreno Government, his former Minister of Finance, Juan Bravo, has arrived at the Upper House. The guru for which the Andalusian president did fight against Feijóo. The Galician won and, like Bendodo, Bravo has left Parliament just after being appointed senator, despite being number one for the PP in the province of his birth, Jaén.
Bravo, Treasury inspector on special services commission, and who has been receiving a much higher salary at the Board than that of a director thanks to a legal twist, was considered a marriageist imposed on Moreno in 2020 by the direction of Pablo Casado. Now, it has become one of the mainstays of Feijóo’s PP in the face of the difficult economic panorama that is venturing in the coming months.
Both will receive, in principle, the same salary as their leader, about 70,000 euros, since they do not complement their position with any position in the Senate.
Last Tuesday, the former mayor of Jerez de la Frontera, María José García-Pelayo Jurado, former Secretary of Culture and Tourism with Casado, was also sworn in. Her passage through the Mayor’s Office of Jerez was dotted with irregularities and she was charged within the framework of the Gurtel case, but the magistrate of the Supreme Court Antonio del Moral twice saved her from being tried despite the evidence against her. García-Pelayo has left her position in Congress to go to the Upper House and, despite her past, she will repeat in May 2023 as a PP candidate in the city of Cadiz. Her position has been occupied by the one who was spokesman for the PP in the Cádiz City Council, Ignacio Romaní, also affected by scandals during his time in Aguas de Cádiz.
Along with the newcomers there are other members of the PP leadership who were already in the Senate before Feijóo’s rise. This is the case of the spokesman, Javier Maroto, one of the few survivors in the purge carried out with the Casado team. Maroto maintains his position, which entails his presence in the Management Committees on Mondays.
Maroto is one of the PP leaders who receives a higher public salary. In addition to the allocation per senator, there is compensation for being from outside Madrid, and two supplements: that of spokesperson for the group (2,897.09 for 14 payments) and that of spokesperson for the Regulation Commission (1,134.52 euros for 14 you pay). In total, 126,564.06 euros.
The Deputy Minister for Regional and Local Coordination, Pedro Rollán, was also a senator by appointment of the Madrid Assembly, after Isabel Díaz Ayuso put land in the middle between her Government and her immediate predecessor in office since Rollán was accidental president of the Community of Madrid after the resignation and flight to Ciudadanos of his friend Ángel Garrido, angry because Casado did not bet on him as a candidate and opted for Ayuso. A decision that he probably regretted more than once.
His salary is different. For representing Madrid, he receives a lower compensation of 933.78 euros. Adding the base salary and the spokesperson complement for the Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda Committee, the total is 71,665.44 euros.
The list is completed by the president of the Committee of Rights and Guarantees of the PP, the former president of Extremadura José Antonio Monago. Senator by regional appointment, he is deputy spokesman for the parliamentary group and second vice-president of the Finance Commission, two positions with mutually compatible complements, for which his annual salary is also one of the highest: 117,681.76 euros.
The rest of the Feijóo Management Committee is not in the Senate because they already held other public positions. This is the case of the general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, another survivor of the Casado era who maintained the Spokesperson for Congress. Like Esteban González Pons the one of the Senate and Dolors Montserrat the one of MEP.
But the landing of PP leaders in the Senate is not limited to the first circle of power. Seven other senior PP officials occupy a seat in the Upper House, all of them relegated in their day by Casado.
This is the case of Ana Isabel Alós, senator elected by Huesca and who occupies the Secretary of Provincial and Insular Policy. Or Patricia Rodríguez (elected by Ávila) and Secretary of Family, Equality and Demographic Challenge. Feijóo promoted her to Deputy Speaker in the Upper House.
Another of the new leaders of the PP is Antonio Román, a prominent anti-abortion activist elected by Guadalajara, of whose capital he was mayor, and who today is the secretary of Municipal Policy and Large Cities. As in the previous case, he was appointed deputy spokesman, with the respective economic improvement.
Jaime Miguel de los Santos (appointed by the Madrid Assembly) is Secretary of Culture, Sofía Acedo (elected by Melilla), of Affiliation and Participation, Jorge Martínez Antolín (elected by Palencia), is Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development and José Vicente Marí (appointed by the Parliament of the Balearic Islands), secretary of Industry, Tourism, Commerce, Companies and Circular Economy.
Add Comment