Less than a year before the 2019 autonomous and municipal elections as the party attempts to recover from its most serious crisis in years and with the convening of the PP congress scheduled for 20 and 21 July, the leadership has now been dealt a further setback during the  summarizing of the Gürtel case that now says that the party, with Francisco Camps at the helm, was financed illegally in the Valencian community.

During the 2007 regional elections, and the general elections that took place in the following year, the electoral campaigns were both financed by businessmen who paid many of the party expenses and who later, received profitable contracts from the Generalitat in exchange.

A judge said that the electoral campaigns were financed in such an absolutely irregular way that it was criminal, a statement that is yet another devastating blow for the PP.

The Gürtel ruling now confirms that the PP was financed illegally in the elections of 2007 and 2008, a ruling that further weakens the party in the Community and will no doubt stimulate  the need for a full internal battle in the coming months.

The weight that the current PP leadership in the Valencia Community and in the Alicante Province is having to endure has now become much heavier and harder to lift.