We are fans of Italy’s new, populist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Now it appears that a similar figure is rising in Spain: Madrid’s President, Isabel Díaz Ayuso:
Fresh from freeing Madrid from lockdown, Isabel Díaz Ayuso is waging a war on woke and seeking to turn Madrid into the “Florida of Europe” in a campaign that could ultimately lead to her becoming Spain’s first female prime minister.
The “Florida of Europe” is another indication of how thoroughly American politics have penetrated Europe. Thus, too, the fact that Diaz Ayuso’s enemies call her Spain’s Trumpista.
With two crunch elections on the horizon, Madrid’s president is ready for the political fight of her life: to topple the socialist-communist coalition government of Pedro Sánchez, leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party.
It is amazing that any civilized country still has a socialist-communist government. No wonder Spain has been a basket case.
The Right-wing firebrand is running for re-election in May in a vote seen as crucial before the battle for Spain’s future is fought in December’s general elections. Her supporters praise her as “Saint Isabel”, but the regional leader is a hate figure for the Left, which brands her a “Trumpista” or “fascist”.
In Spain, as in America, a politician who wants to reduce the power and scope of government is bizarrely branded a “fascist.”
Leftists the world over hate Israel. It has become, for reasons that are not entirely clear, a sort of Rorschach test. Thus, a contrast between left-wing Barcelona and Díaz Ayuso’s more conservative, and economically resurgent, Madrid. From the Jerusalem Post:
A senior Spanish politician decided to visit Israel to counteract Barcelona’s recent announcement that the city will no longer be twinned with Tel Aviv, citing claims of “apartheid” and “violation of human rights.”
“The city of Barcelona did something that is a big mistake and that doesn’t represent the whole of Spain and it does not represent Madrid,” Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid told The Jerusalem Post during a 48-hour visit this week.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso in Jerusalem
Díaz Ayuso sounds like the sort of conservative we Americans like:
Like her American counterpart [Ron DeSantis], she used devolved powers to make Madrid the first Spanish region free from lockdown and herself one of her party the Partido Popular’s biggest stars. Madrid was gripped by “Ayusomania” as it enjoyed an economic boost that outstripped shuttered Spanish regions.
Since then she has cut taxes and red tape in a suite of open market policies that has been rewarded with growth two points above the national average. She cut income tax in the region by 20 per cent and introduced deductions to reward businesses hiring new workers. Madrid has overtaken Catalonia as Spain’s richest region, attracting £12.8 billion in foreign investment.
We will keep an eye on her political future. Meanwhile, it sounds as though she is more of a “DeSantista” than a “Trumpista.”
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.