Feijóo opens Spanish election campaign in Galicia, promising audit and housing vice presidency

Back in Santiago

Alberto Núñez Feijóo opened the PP's campaign for the 29 November general election on Saturday, 14 November, at the Multiusos Fontes do Sar pavilion in Santiago de Compostela. Press reports put the crowd at about 8,000 people. The same arena is where he announced his bid to lead the party nationally in 2022, and Alfonso Rueda, the party's Galician leader, spoke before him. Rueda said Galicia would drive change in Spain and challenged the Socialists to fill the same pavilion when Pedro Sánchez holds an event there on Wednesday, 18 November. He also attacked the BNG for being combative in the regional parliament but meek in Congress.

Feijóo, who had to pause several times because of emotion, recalled that he had asked the party for permission to run for the Xunta and later for permission to move into national politics. This time, he said, he was not asking for permission. He put the distance to power in simple terms and asked the crowd for one more push.

“To the Palacio de la Moncloa there are 600 kilometres and 15 days. Help me complete this journey and I will not let you down.”

The crowd, which had arrived by bus from across Galicia, stood up in response. It was his first big campaign rally.

Corruption and the audit pledge

Feijóo condensed eight years of Sánchez's government into "corruption, machismo, incompetence and arrogance". He said the transport ministry embodied that record and that the ministry had cost "money and lives". His central promise was an audit of everything the current government had "touched and plundered", to begin at the first Council of Ministers under a Popular Party government. He also said there would be no pardons for the corrupt and no impunity for anyone who had stolen public money.

On the same theme he added a second commitment on the cabinet itself, saying no incompetent people would sit in government and that ministers would need to know how to run a budget and the administration. Feijóo presented his experience running the Xunta as proof that he could do this job at national level. He framed the campaign as a choice between management and what he called the government's record.

In his closing argument on the subject, he said:

“With me as president there will be no more corruption, there will be a clean-up.”

Housing and the ministries

On Friday, 13 November, in an interview with the YouTuber Jordi Wild, Feijóo said he would eliminate the Equality and Housing ministries as part of a plan to shrink government. At the rally he softened that message. Housing would sit inside a vice presidency because, he said, it is the biggest problem in Spain, but he did not say what rank the department would have or whether it would stay a ministry or drop to a secretariat of state. He said housing was the 15th problem for Spaniards when Sánchez's government took office and is now the first, which he blamed on incompetence and neglect. He repeated his pledge to build one million homes and said the key point was delivering them rather than the department's label.

Financing and the road to the vote

Feijóo also promised a new regional financing model, which he tied directly to the quality of health care, education and services for dependent people. He argued that a doctor should be paid adequately wherever they work and that public services should not depend on the territory where someone lives. He said the system should treat all Spaniards equally, and that it should not favour some regions over others. He closed by contrasting his 2022 request for permission with his request now.

“Today I come to ask for work, to ask for support and to ask for votes.”

The general election is set for 29 November. Sánchez's first campaign event in Galicia, due on Wednesday, 18 November, at the same pavilion, will test the challenge Rueda issued at the rally.