Lockdown skeptic looks to eclipse far right in Madrid vote

MADRID (AP) — Hailed as a flag-bearer of Spain's anti-lockdown movement, the chief of the country's capital region turned Madrid this year into a European exception, where bars, restaurants, museums and concert halls remained open even as contagion rates strained hospitals.

Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso's resistance to sweeping closures and preference for treating COVID-19 patients in cavernous venues have constantly pitched the 42-year-old conservative against Spain's left-wing ruling coalition. The political strife, which has involved boasts, blame and lawsuits, has escalated in the run-up to a regional election on May 4.

“I'm facing an exam,” Díaz Ayuso, the election frontrunner, told The Associated Press this week. “It’s like asking ‘Do you like what I’ve done until now?’ Well, then give me a broader majority so I can manage things with more strength.”

Díaz Ayuso called the election two months ago, when coronavirus cases were plateauing from a post-Christmas peak but hospitals in Madrid were reeling - they still are - from a persistent flow of COVID-19 patients. While surprising, her decision came as a natural end to her Popular Party's testy relationship with the liberal Citizens party, the junior partner in Madrid's governing coalition’.

“The government's mind and heart just weren't in the same place,” Díaz Ayuso said of the disputes that soured relations within the coalition during the pandemic.

The public health crisis nonetheless has helped transform Díaz Ayuso from an inexperienced politician who raised eyebrows with off-the-cuff comments in front of cameras to a defiant figure and scourge of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party.

Along the way, she earned as much support as hatred. Constituents once seduced...