The lack of control of Vox in the territories and the crisis opened by Olona cause the fall of Ortega Smith

The national deputy and Madrid councilor said goodbye this Thursday on his Twitter account to his colleagues in the area and announced that from now on he will focus on the task he currently performs as spokesman for the Madrid City Council and on preparing the 2023 campaign, once he has been ratified as a municipal candidate by the National Executive Committee of the far-right party. His version of events, according to the statements he has made to journalists in the corridors of Congress, is that he has made the decision to be able to dedicate himself exclusively to “winning Madrid”, since that task was not compatible with the secretariat general of the paetido in regional and municipal elections that were crucial for Vox and in which he had to support the candidates from all over Spain. However, Vox has placed him in one of the party’s three vice-presidencies and has appointed him as the legal head of the parliamentary group in Congress, functions that, according to what he has said, will not require as much dedication or force him to be in direct contact with everyone. the territories as before.

Shortly after the leadership issued the statement with his replacement, Abascal thanked him for his work also on social networks, emphasizing that Ortega Smith would continue “by his side” in the direction but as “vice president”, without knowing what content will be assigned to him. . In Vox there are two other vice-presidencies held by the MEP and national spokesperson, Jorge Buxadé -‘tutor’ of Garriga-, and Reyes Romero.

“For years, in the desert crossing, I have felt my friend, compadre and companion, Javier Ortega Smith, by my side. I am glad to know that I will continue to have it, now in the vice presidency, and I hope that very soon in the mayor’s office of Madrid”, ventured the president of Vox, who according to public OK Daily he has created a cabinet to prepare the electoral candidacies from which he has excluded the one he now continues to call his “friend and compadre”.

With his appointment as a candidate for mayor of Madrid, the speculations that maintained that the leadership of the party was going to entrust Ortega Smith to be the head of the Castilla-La Mancha cartel in the regional elections are closed, given his links with Toledo, where He owns a cigarral and where he got married. The Vox leader himself nurtured that possibility on various visits to the region, pointing out, without ruling out anything, that he would be “wherever it was most necessary and useful for the party.” This Thursday’s gesture also silences those who insisted that the current spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly, Rocío Monasterio, was going to be the head of the municipal cartel to fight against the current mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, instead of repeat in front of Isabel Díaz Ayuso in the Community of Madrid, given that in Vox they have not the slightest doubt that the autonomous leader of the PP will sweep the capital again.

But what Ortega Smith has used most thoroughly has been to try to disassociate his departure from the position from the tension he had with Macarena Olona or from the internal criticism he is suffering from some party colleagues due to the chaos that reigns in the territories. “It has nothing to do with it,” he reiterated this Thursday, referring to Olona. I have been the one who when I have been proposed to take on such an important, demanding and responsible challenge, I have considered the decision, ”said the Vox municipal spokesman.

The former candidate for the Junta de Andalucía had not hidden her discomfort with Ortega Smith, against whom she pointed out, without citing him, in an interview granted to ABC in which he denounced the “lack of internal democracy” in Vox and the “lynching” that some leaders organized against it after not meeting the expectations that were set in that community. The result of her complaints was the lapidary phrase of the parliamentary spokesman, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros: “Definitely this is the end of the road.” Olona replied that it was “only the beginning”. This Thursday, the former deputy for Granada fired Ortega Smith on Twitter, also in her own way and not without a certain stink.

The truth is that lately the work of Ortega Smith, who has also combined his municipal position with his seat in Congress, has been highly questioned internally by some party colleagues. These critical voices with his management consider that he “encompassed too much power that he exercised unceremoniously”, but without managing to stop the internal crises that Vox has been suffering over the last few years in various territories. The last one, the one that led this Thursday to the block resignation of the party leadership in Badajoz. They have also reproached him for neglecting his duties as a councilor or as a deputy in that eagerness to accumulate charges. In fact, Almeida himself has reproached him on several occasions for his repeated absences from the City Council.

But the tension within the party has already been transferred to many groups given the proximity of the double electoral appointment in May 2023. The absence of news about the candidacies is causing nerves in those who aspire to repeat on the lists. And in many municipalities of Madrid or other provinces they have no idea who to put, according to some former members of the formation who know their gear well.

“After the dismal results achieved in Andalusia we know first-hand the nervousness created in the positions that want to get a small salary at least in the municipal elections. They are seeing the weakness of the project and the lack of proposals close to the citizens. Most of them know deep down that they won’t even get to be a councilor, because of the mistakes made,” the group of Barcelona critics wrote this week on their Telegram account.

Meanwhile, in Murcia, the deputies who were expelled from Vox and forced to be readmitted by court ruling, but who no longer follow the party’s guidelines, are the ones who are helping Olona to promote this “new project” that the former Alicante leader announced a few days ago and for which it is hurriedly seeking financing. For now, the president of Alianza Cívica, Herenia Trillo, has denied that Olona is going to lead that party and has demanded that the digital medium that published it rectify it.

In these circumstances, this weekend, Vox will try to stage unity and close ranks and both Ortega Smith and Ignacio Garriga will take part in the VIVA 22 macro-event together with Santiago Abascal. The event is held in Madrid and the party has deployed all the means at its disposal for this.