The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, stated this Friday that she “would have the right” to have a presidential residence, as other regional leaders do, but that the “penthouse” referred to by the national Executive head, Pedro Sánchez, was not hers.
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Thus she began her defense, following harsh criticism from Más Madrid and the PSOE in the second day of the regional state debate over the penthouse worth more than six million euros acquired by a public company attached to the Madrid Executive.
“(Pedro Sánchez) has lied in parliamentary sessions and in all the interviews he gives. That residence is not a penthouse for me. You are a liar, a fraud, and a deceiver,” the regional leader defended herself on the second day of the Regional State Debate (DER).
Comparison with other presidents
In any case, she referred to the fact that if that were the case, she “would have the right” as happens with the presidents of the Canary Islands, Galicia, Basque Country, Aragon, Andalusia, La Rioja, or Murcia and “nothing happens.”
In her speech, Díaz Ayuso conveyed that everything is due to a “chronology of personal harassment” that she claims to suffer from the left and stated that she does not live like them “in palaces or residences,” also assuring that she has never wanted to “live off the public.”
She believes the left only wants to “stretch things out” and always be “in controversy.” “All you have done is a chronology of personal harassment, you have tried since the first time I sat in this seat to destroy my family and destroy me personally and you have done nothing else,” she pointed out.
Thus, the Madrid leader emphasized that they started with her father, who passed away 12 years ago, that “they know nothing” because they have done “nothing but lie” and have no “respect.” “They talk about a luxury hotel that I paid for myself, what a shame, I am one of the few regional presidents who have a frozen salary, who pays for their vacations, all their vacations,” the Madrid president defended.
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The president argues that she has a “frozen salary”
Along the same lines, she claimed that she has a “frozen salary” and does not live “in palaces like her bosses,” referring to the opposition, something she assures she has “never done.”
The opposition’s response
“Stop comparing yourself to other governments”
The PSOE sees the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, as “trapped” and “adrift” trying to “justify” the purchase of the penthouse for 6.3 million euros in Chamberí and has stated that she will pay for it at the polls in 2027. “Stop playing the victim, stop whining. What outrages Madrilenians is that you live the high life with luxury homes, dream trips, and millionaire commissions at the expense of public money,” said Mar Espinar, PSOE spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly.
She also pointed out the homes of the ministers and the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, to which Espinar recommended that she “leave the central government alone and stop comparing yourself to other governments of other autonomous communities.”
Regarding the ministers’ homes, she highlighted that they are of “public and transparent ownership,” “unlike the penthouse,” and that they have been used by governments also of the PP “by Álvarez Cascos, De la Serna, or Rajoy.”
That is why she insisted to the president to clarify “who ordered the purchase of the penthouse and where the file is.” “Answer here, before having to do it in front of the judge,” Espinar demanded.
“You are announcing what you have not done and will never do. Money for the penthouse? Yes. Money for schools? No. Money for the penthouse? Yes. Money for fire prevention? No. Money for the penthouse? Yes. Money for public hospitals? No. And that is the summary of your management,” she stated.
For her part, the spokesperson of Más Madrid in the Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, highlighted that the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, already “admits that the penthouse” was for her and that she does not live in that 6.3 million euro property bought by the regional Executive because she was “caught.”
“And of course, since I have never done it, instead of being a freeloader like them, which we will talk about next, I have paid for everything myself. And what happens? That already gives them the right to persecute everything around me, whether with drones like at the last house, photos on the facades, harassment even of my own neighbors…,” she stated.
Ayuso defended that “there is no right” to “persecute” any politician, who must indeed be overseen, because she believes the left only wants to “cut off the right of Madrilenians to have a government they chose at the polls.”
“They have taken the story of my life and in every chapter where they could, they have tried to harass me, whether it was the grades at school, the types of centers I attended, where I obtained, yes, my degrees in public institutions,” she pointed out
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