Pablo Casado, new PP leader

Pablo Casado has been elected the new leader of the People’s Party. The politician, up until now the vice secretary of communication for the party, won over his competitor Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría – former vice president of Spain – by a narrow margin of around 300 votes, according to party sources.

Ahead of him, Casado now faces the challenge of healing wounds opened by a hardball campaign with little space for debate, and will now be able to choose an executive, which will work towards recovering votes lost to the largest unionist party, Ciutadans (Cs) in the next 2019 elections. 

Casado will also have to work towards avoiding a possible internal fracture of the leadership in the party, following the race to the top between him and Sáenz de Santamaría. In one of his first moves, he offered a space to his previous opponent in his new executive-to-be.

Regards the strategy of the party he now leads, Casado made it clear in his speech that the PP would “again win over” the Catalans, making it so that this hypothetical country of Tabarnia be true,” referring to the satirical anti-independence country within Catalonia.

Casado also vowed to “stop Torra’s plan” so that the “deceit of pro-independence forces falls.” During his speech he also vindicated “one Spain” and warned that he will “make it so that the People’s Party is respected.”