All of the party's regional 'barons' had asked him to step forward. Even Pablo Casado had asked for it, both in private and in public. And thus Alberto Núñez Feijóo obliged. The moderate conservative leader who since 2009 has presided over Galicia - the territory of one of the Spanish state's three "historical nationalities" - has made it official in front of his Galician PP colleagues: he will opt to take over the reins of the Popular Party in the special congress on April 1st and 2nd in Seville. As he explained, a decision that has been "precipitated" by the galloping events of recent weeks, but also one that he has "thought through." And he made it clear that he will not leave the presidency of the Xunta of Galicia "in a month", but that the transition could be slower. If it has taken a long time to make the move, he argued, it is because his priority has always been Galicia.
No voting was required; the assembly of the Galician PP allowed him to participate in the race by acclamation. "I feel an institutional and moral obligation to put myself at the disposal of my party and my country to guarantee the solid, serene, reliable and solvent government that Spain needs," he told his people. "I think I can, with a united party, achieve our goal. Spain is waiting for us and in the PP it will find the party to govern," he said.
Shows of support didn't take long to arrive. One of the first came from the regional president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who congratulated him via social media: "The step forward taken by Alberto Núñez Feijóo is something the whole PP should be grateful for. There is only one way to change the Sánchez government: look ahead and deliver the best of ourselves."
From the very outbreak of the crisis between Pablo Casado and Ayuso, all eyes were on the Galician leader. He led the talks with the barons to try to find a way out. The same barons who last week publicly hailed him as the future party leader. Pablo Casado also asked him to take over the reins of the party, in a private meeting held a week ago in the Calle Génova offices.
Yesterday, he did the same thing publicly. In his farewell, before the PP's national assembly, Pablo Casado urged the Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo to take the reins of the Popular Party that he is leaving. The outgoing PP president took advantage of his speech to ask that the party leaves the clashes behind, that a new leadership be built with a "project of unity". Casado also made it clear that he is leaving "with a very calm conscience", despite the wear and tear and attacks suffered during the last two weeks in his no-holds-barred fight with Isabel Díaz Ayuso.