The PP backs participation but questions postal voting after Isabel Díaz Ayuso's warning. Ester Muñoz urges citizens to vote by whichever method they choose.
On Tuesday, Ester Muñoz said she preferred to vote in person in León. She also said voters should use whichever legal method suits them. The comments came after Isabel Díaz Ayuso urged people not to vote by post.
Muñoz made the remarks in an interview with COPE. Ayuso had issued her call on Monday, soon after the general election was announced. Muñoz said she understood why some people might doubt postal voting. She linked those doubts to Pedro Sánchez's conduct, which she said had not been clean.
Participation comes first.
For the 29 November election, postal-voting applications can be submitted from 6 October to 19 November. Ballots and documentation are scheduled to be delivered from 9 to 22 November, while completed votes can be sent until 25 November with identification.
Muñoz described the election as a chance to change the country. She pointed to the PP's lead in opinion polls and its aim of winning a parliamentary majority with Vox. That would make Alberto Núñez Feijóo prime minister.
The two messages do not fully match. Ayuso is warning voters about alleged traps. Muñoz is not asking them to abandon postal voting. She is asking them to vote by any method they consider appropriate.
The party has not issued a formal ban. National PP spokesperson Borja Sémper said the postal system guarantees elections and includes controls. He urged supporters to vote in person or by post rather than stay at home, according to El Constitucional.
That was the split.
Ayuso repeated her warning on Tuesday. She again called Pedro Sánchez a trickster who changes the rules of the game. She told people to go to the ballot box but did not explain how the election could be manipulated.
Ayuso also accused Sánchez of increasing electoral rolls through regularisations. She said his political strategy would bring street disturbances and various distractions.
Ayuso has forecast up to seven additional parliamentary seats for Madrid, linking as many as three to migrant regularisations and the so-called Grandchildren Law. Published reports present this as a political warning about possible changes in the electoral roll and seat distribution, not as proof that voting has been falsified.
The statements did not include a concrete mechanism for the alleged fraud. EFE reported that Ayuso spoke of a supposed change to the electoral rolls but offered no evidence of systemic fraud. She also gave no evidence of a weakness in the postal-voting procedure.
Borja Sémper took a different line on Onda Cero. He described Spain's electoral process as one built around guarantees. The PP's campaign message now sits between reassurance about the system and suspicion directed at the prime minister.
The reason is simple.
Vox has also backed in-person voting. Pepa Millán called on people to vote at the ballot box on 29 November. She warned about the risks of a prime minister who had carried out a primary election fraud, according to her account.
Millán presented the election as perhaps the last chance for Spaniards to control their own destiny. She said she hoped the contest would be free, clean and peaceful. Vox leader Santiago Abascal has also questioned postal voting and urged citizens to vote personally. The issue has spread beyond the PP and into the wider right-wing campaign.
Podemos secretary general Ione Belarra also criticised Ayuso. Belarra said the doubts about postal voting showed a problematic attitude toward democratic participation. She linked the dispute to the voting rights of descendants of Spanish emigrants and exiles.
The dispute is about more than campaign tactics. It also concerns who is expected to vote and which channels they are encouraged to use.
The PP is celebrating the election call and says it is ready to govern. The contest over alliances was already visible in an earlier report on Sumar's talks with territorial partners. Campaign groups are already setting out different electoral strategies.
The dispute spread.
According to RUSSPAIN, the practical message remains clear: nobody in the parties' public statements is being told to stay away from the election. Muñoz supports participation by either method. Ayuso and Vox are pressing voters to attend polling stations.
The PP's position looks less like a ban than a warning campaign aimed at postal voting. Its weakness is clear too. The allegations of electoral traps come without a specific explanation of how the alleged manipulation would happen.
Voters still have one direct instruction. Cast a ballot rather than accept political suspicion as a reason to stay home. Available reporting points to a reputational and political conflict, not an institutional decision that the postal system is unreliable. It also does not establish a scheme of electoral manipulation.
