Feijóo fills Madrid list with party insiders and mayors; Ayuso reshuffles three councils

Feijóo fills the Madrid list with party insiders

The Partido Popular registered its full list of Madrid candidates for the Congress of Deputies on Monday, 26 October, ahead of the general election on 29 November. Alberto Núñez Feijóo had already named MEP Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo as number two and party spokesman Borja Sémper as number three on Thursday, 22 October. The party said the pair represent different ways of understanding Spain and that every sensibility has a place in the party.

Alma Ezcurra, an MEP currently coordinating the party's election programme, was announced on Saturday, 24 October as number four. Jaime de los Santos, the deputy secretary for education and equality, takes fifth place, while Feijóo's chief of staff Marta Varela is sixth and Mar Sánchez, who has been Feijóo's right hand for 30 years, is eighth. Alberto Nadal, the deputy secretary for economy, is ninth, international director Ildefonso Castro is 11th and María Martín, the party's new head of strategy, is 12th. Madrid regional councillor Carlos Novillo is also on the list.

Three mayors from the region sit at 14, 16 and 18: Lucía Soledad Fernández of San Sebastián de los Reyes, Rocío García Alcántara of Alcobendas and Paloma Tejero of Pozuelo. The PP won 16 seats in Madrid at the 23 July 2023 election and has been tasked with improving that result. Feijóo said in an interview with Cadena SER that he gave Álvarez de Toledo this message when he told her she would be number two:

“You have the commitment and the obligation to raise Madrid's seat count by two.”

Ayuso reshuffles three Madrid councils

Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso reshuffled three councils on Monday, after councillor Carlos Novillo and vice-councillor José Antonio Sánchez were recruited to the PP's Madrid candidacy. Jorge Rodrigo leaves Housing, Transport and Infrastructure to head the council for Environment, Agriculture and Interior, which Novillo had run. José María García Gómez, Rodrigo's number two as vice-councillor, will become councillor for Housing, Transport and Infrastructure.

Ángel San Gregorio, currently director general of Citizen Attention and Transparency, will be named vice-councillor of the Presidency department, according to eldiario.es. The regional council met in an extraordinary telematic session because councillor appointments are made by presidential decree, while vice-councillors and directors general are approved by the council. The regional government credits the housing department with Metro network expansions and 16,500 affordable rental homes under the Plan Vive.

Under Novillo, the Environment, Agriculture and Interior council handled emergencies including the large Sierra Oeste fire and flood episodes. The government also cites its LÍDER law as essential for housing construction. The opposition and some associations have criticised that law for favouring the privatisation of public land.

Senate seats and the regional base

Feijóo also placed Madrid deputy mayor Inma Sanz second on the Madrid Senate list, a move that Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida welcomed. Asked whether he counts on her as a future deputy mayor, Martínez-Almeida answered without hesitation:

“In my team I always want to count on Inma.”

Sanz said a Senate seat would be "perfectly compatible" with her city role and that she would be fully committed to Madrid, a city where her children were born even though she was not. On the national level, an agreement with Vox for the Senate removes the PP's Senate candidacy in three provinces but does not affect regions the party governs. The PP holds eleven of Spain's 17 regional presidencies and is present in the Canary Islands government.

What comes next

The general election is set for 29 November, and the lists now go before voters on that date. Madrid's regional elections are due in May 2027. Rodrigo leaves a department that faced a summer surge in Metro complaints about heat, the extension of line 10 and plans to automate line 6. The new housing councillor takes over those files in a period of protests over housing.