Former Vox minister Elisa Núñez rejoins the PP, citing need for political change

Return to the PP

Elisa Núñez, who held the Justice and Interior portfolio in the Valencian regional government as a Vox nominee, has rejoined the Partido Popular. She announced the move on Tuesday, 3 November, in a social media post that included a photograph of her with the PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Núñez told the news agency EFE that she had formalised her membership on Monday, 2 November, in the afternoon, once the electoral lists were drawn up, so that the decision could not be read as opportunistic. She described the PP as the natural space for her view of institutional politics and said the party shares her belief in public management based on responsibility and effectiveness. She also said it was necessary for Pedro Sánchez to leave the Moncloa.

“I have returned home, I have gone back to the PP.”

Dismissal and break with Vox

Núñez was removed from her post in July 2024, together with the former first vice-president Vicente Barrera and agriculture councillor José Luis Aguirre, when Vox withdrew from the regional governments it shared with the PP. Salomé Pradas took over the Justice responsibility. Days later Núñez wrote to Santiago Abascal to resign her party membership. She said she had learned of the decision from the media and had kept silent out of loyalty, without ever sharing it. In the same letter she objected to the party's radical drift on irregular immigration and violence against women, and named the regional governments affected, including the Valencian Community.

“I do not share the radical drift that Vox's National Executive Committee has introduced.”

Objections to Vox's European realignment and the Senate deal

Núñez also rejected Vox's change of group in the European Parliament. She said she could not in conscience take on the policies and statements of Viktor Orbán, president of the group Vox has joined, or those of other leaders in it. Her departure from Vox and her return to the PP come in the same period in which the two parties are coordinating ahead of the next elections. José Luis Aguirre, Vox's former agriculture councillor and its vice-president in Valencia, will run for the Senate as an independent in second place on the PP list in Valencia. That placement falls under the agreement between Feijóo and Abascal to pool right-wing votes in the upper house. Vicente Barrera currently carries out organisational duties as Vox's provincial president and could lead the party's list for the Generalitat or Valencia city council in the regional and municipal elections due in May.

Núñez's political history

Núñez was a member of the PP from 2003 to 2011, having come through its youth wing, Nuevas Generaciones. Between 2008 and 2011, under Francisco Camps as regional president, she advised the Generalitat on the integration of immigrants and foreign nationals. She took up the Justice and Interior post in July 2023 in the first Consell of Carlos Mazón, a little over two years before her return to the PP. Since leaving Vox in July 2024 she has held contacts with Valencian PP figures. Her return is the latest in a series of moves that link former Vox figures in Valencia with the party she now rejoins.