Alejandro Fernández, new head of Catalan PP

Tarragona MP Alejandro Fernández yesterday took over as head of the Catalan wing of the People’s Party (PP), with 97% of the vote as the only candidate in an extraordinary party congress in Sitges. He replaces Xavier Garcia Albiol, who left the post to focus on the local election in Badalona.

Fernández focused his first speech as party leader on the 53% of Catalans not explicitly in favour of independence, which he proposed raising to 70%, who “had been systematically ignored” and who he said he wanted to “protect”. Fernández proposed giving more visibility and incentives to teachers and judges from other parts of Spain who are considering leaving Catalonia over the political situation. Other proposals included recovering “the prestige, resources and operational capacity” of the state delegate to Catalonia, “guaranteeing that court sentences are complied with”, providing “resources” to promote Catalonia’s “deep historic Spanish feelings”, and a new branch of the Cervantes Institute under the name “Cervantes-Pla”.

Fernández was also critical of the other unionist parties, accusing the Catalan Socialists of being “soft” and the Cs party of “constantly complaining”, compared with the “firmness” of the PP, and he argued for an “ideological rearmament” of the party and an “attractive agenda of liberal-conservative public policies.”