Esperanza Aguirre wades back in: Blames Rajoy for the birth of Vox and reignites civil war in the PP

You'd think they'd be used to it by now, but every time Esperanza Aguirre speaks, the Partido Popular trembles. The former undisputed leader of the PP in Madrid and ex-president of the region has decided, once again, to shake the party's foundations with comments that have spared no one. And this time, the spotlight isn't just on her protégée, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; it's aimed squarely at former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. The civil war on the Spanish right isn't just ongoing—it's flaring up with unexpected ferocity.

“Rajoy led us to the brink”: The origins of the Vox tsunami

What Aguirre has let slip in recent hours is, to say the least, seismic. According to sources close to the former leader, her diagnosis is damning: the emergence and subsequent success of Vox wasn't some accident or a stroke of genius by its founders, but rather a power vacuum left, in her words, by the PP leadership under Mariano Rajoy. In political circles, her message boils down to this: “If there hadn't been a government hell-bent on erasing the identity of the centre-right, someone else wouldn't have had to fill that space.”

For her, Rajoy's lack of backbone during his years in La Moncloa was the perfect breeding ground. The feeling among many traditional PP voters that nothing was being done in the face of territorial challenges or how certain issues were handled pushed a chunk of the electorate to look for a more combative home. And this is where Esperanza Aguirre stirs the pot: without Rajoy's leadership, Vox simply wouldn't exist as we know it today. It's a blunt, no-holds-barred accusation that lays bare the internal rift that has never truly healed.

• Criticism of Rajoy: Aguirre accuses him of having “squandered” Aznar's legacy and leaving right-leaning voters feeling abandoned.
• The Ayuso effect: Amid this storm, the current Madrid president comes out looking stronger, positioned as the natural heir to that more combative spirit.
• Feijóo's secret: The former leader reveals that she could have been the one to “put the brakes on” the current national leader, but chose to take a back seat instead.

Loyalty (and the knife) with Ayuso, and Feijóo's complicated role

Amid this verbal offensive, Aguirre also wanted to clarify her position regarding Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Far from the gossip about a cold distance, Aguirre insists her relationship with the current regional leader is one of full mutual understanding. But the real juicy part came when she spoke about the national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. As she has confided to those close to her, there was a moment when she herself could have become the main alternative to the current party leadership, but she decided against it, allowing Feijóo to consolidate his position without facing a fierce internal challenge. “I could have been the one in that role, but I chose a different path,” she essentially said, hinting that had it not been for that personal decision, the history of the post-Rajoy PP might look very different.

These revelations are far from innocent. They come at a time when the PP is trying to project unity ahead of upcoming election cycles. But Esperanza Aguirre casts a long shadow, and her words carry the weight of someone who, for years, was the only voice daring to challenge the stagnation of the Rajoy era. For many, her analysis of Vox's origins is a wake-up call. For others, it’s simply confirmation that the former leader remains the grand strategist, pulling strings from the sidelines to position her allies and set the agenda.

Resurrection or settling scores?

What's clear is that Spanish politics, especially the centre-right space, can't afford to ignore what Aguirre says. Her latest remarks aren't just letting off steam; they're a bitter diagnosis of what she sees as a historic mistake. By going after Rajoy, she’s not only vindicating her own trajectory but also legitimising the hard-right shift embodied by Ayuso and Vox as a necessary, almost organic, response to an era she considers a “betrayal” of core principles.

While Feijóo tries to navigate these turbulent waters, Esperanza Aguirre has once again placed herself at the centre of the storm, proving that her voice—even without a formal political role—remains one of the most reliable barometers for measuring the temperature of the PP's internal war. The narrative is set: Rajoy created the conditions for a monster to emerge that now eats away at votes on the right, and she, alongside Ayuso, were the only ones who saw it for what it was and fought it. The rest, as always, is history that will continue to be written with incendiary statements.