The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, tried yesterday to close the penthouse crisis with the announcement of 100 measures, but the opposition -Más Madrid and PSOE- have taken advantage of their respective turns in the debate on the state of the region to once again bring up the issue of the residences of the leader of the Madrid PP.
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In a very tense atmosphere, the spokesperson for Más Madrid, Manuela Bergerot, stated that “she has earned the respect of the Madrid elite, but not of the Madrilenians.” The opposition spokesperson recalled that Ayuso tried to close the controversy with the phrase “chao pescado” (goodbye fish), when in her opinion, “the penthouse and the chao pescado will be the epitaph of her political life.” And she continued with “we await you in the courts, impunity ends; we await you in May 2027.”
Bergerot highlighted that the Madrid government changed the version about the purchase of the penthouse several times, and demanded that the public company Planifica Madrid make the purchase documentation public.
For her part, the PSOE spokesperson, Mar Espinar, began her intervention with the 6.3 million penthouse “paid for by the Madrilenians” and reminded the president that it is a residence with “500 square meters, more than 100 of terrace, five bedrooms, five bathrooms and opposite her mother’s house.” Also, with some irony, Espinar questioned her about her new residence. “How is life going in Puerta de Hierro, Mrs. Ayuso? Is the neighborhood up to your standards? How are you handling the community pool?” referring to the new residence to which Ayuso has moved to live under a rental agreement.
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Besides the debate about Ayuso’s residences, which has been in the spotlight all summer, the two left-wing opposition parties have used their interventions to bring up current issues, such as the poor situation in nursing homes, like the one in Las Rozas, where there is a cockroach infestation and scabies outbreaks; the lack of funding in universities; the situation of healthcare in the Community of Madrid, with 9,000 women waiting to have a mammogram and 114,000 people waiting for surgery; or the labor conflicts and strikes in various groups, such as home care services, the regional observatory on gender violence, fire stations, or in nursery schools.
Bergerot’s party has announced that in the coming weeks it will bring to the Assembly a bill with a new fiscal agreement to tax large inheritances and large fortunes and to put limits on the power of the top 1% of the wealthy.
For her part, Espinar reminded her that “there are more than a million people on waiting lists or 9,000 women waiting to have a mammogram.” She also reminded her that her partner Alberto González Amador “has pocketed 4.4 million euros in commissions, out of the 7 billion that her government has paid to Quirón.” Hence, she resorted to her father’s saying to say: “It is not the same to live thanks to the sweat of your brow as thanks to the sweat of the person opposite.” Regarding education, Espinar reminded Ayuso that classrooms are still not air-conditioned and early childhood educators are on strike. “Welcome to this side of the Manzanares,” she snapped. In her view, the pattern repeats: “Good management for you, bad management for the Madrilenians,” she concluded.
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