2023-09-24 04:00:00
48 hours before the debate for his investiture, which is expected to fail, and supported by his barons and the former presidents José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, seeks this Sunday to make a show of force in the street in favor of his alternative to a Pedro Sánchez government and the amnesty that he negotiates with the Catalan independence movement.
Time.news | Feijóo arrives at his investiture with an already accredited opposition role and a string of strategic swings
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Feijóo will undergo an investiture this Wednesday without sufficient support to be elected president, but he wanted to first display the weight of his party, which governs the majority of Spanish autonomies and cities after the May 28 elections. The PP also sought to close ranks with its candidate in the face of a complex week, in which, barring surprise, it will fail in its first attempt to reach Moncloa.
Feijóo has accused Sánchez of demonstrating an “absolute lack of moral and political integrity” in his negotiation with the independentists and has stated that “what they do has only one name: indignity.” The candidate has also argued that the amnesty would be “a cacicada” because it would mean that “politicians are not equal before the law”, something “unspeakable in a state of law.”
The popular leader has declared that the only accomplices in this “fallacy” are only the members of the “current” PSOE and that the only person responsible is Sánchez, “who is in the Moncloa Palace after having lost the elections.” According to PP sources, more than 65,000 people attended this Sunday’s call, but the National Police places the figure at 30,000. The PP also assures that it is the political event called by a single party “with the largest attendance in recent years.”
From Madrid’s Plaza de Felipe II, Feijóo called for the unity of all Spaniards and asked that “we not treat each other like foreigners in our country.” The leader of the PP was talking about the use of official languages in the Spanish parliament, whose approval he rejected in the plenary session held this last week. “Let’s communicate with respect, not with earpieces or karaoke screens,” said Feijóo, because “in Congress we will understand each other, not translate.”
“Some of the most serious crimes against this nation”
This Sunday, the popular candidate had the support of the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, as well as the former presidents José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy. All of them have expressed their rejection of the amnesty, describing it as anything from a “pact with a fugitive from justice” to “a crucial circumstance for the existence of Spain,” in Aznar’s words.
“We say no to the amnesty because it is the pact between a fugitive from justice and a prisoner of ambition,” declared the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, during his speech welcoming Feijóo to the capital. “Let Sánchez and his followers be clear because we are not going to give up. We will win because we are on the side of reason, common sense and equality,” added the mayor.
The president of the community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has also criticized Sánchez’s possible pact with “those who carried out a coup d’état against Spain in 2017” and has described the October 1 referendum as “an illegal act at the hands of people who “They have committed some of the most serious crimes against this nation.”
Ayuso reiterated during his speech that “in no way” – a phrase that he repeated until he got the audience to chant it – will they allow the approval of an amnesty “because that is saying that the coup never existed.” Although the president was scheduled to speak for only three minutes, her speech finally lasted more than seven.
The former president of the Government, José María Aznar, has described the amnesty negotiations as “a crucial circumstance for the existence of Spain” and has called on all Spaniards to “raise their voices” and prevent the future executive from deciding “a fugitive from justice”, in reference to the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont. “Do not see silence as a responsible option,” he said.
Aznar has stated that “history is not going to be kind to those who now break the moral and political foundation of our coexistence,” in reference to the amnesty. “We know where we are going to be: where we have always been, with the Constitution, with the unity of Spain, with respect for the law and the institutions,” said the former president.
In another intervention focused mainly on the rejection of the amnesty and which has barely mentioned Feijóo’s proposals two days before attempting his inauguration in Congress, former president Mariano Rajoy has also called on PP voters to demonstrate against a possible agreement between Sánchez and Puigdemont. “If the 1977 amnesty marked the transition from a dictatorship to a democratic regime,” said Rajoy, “in this case it represents an amendment to the entirety of our Constitution and our democracy.”
Thousands of people against the amnesty
Under the motto ‘Take to the streets against the amnesty, the referendum and against those who want to destroy our rule of law’, the PP has organized a mobilization against a potential attempt by Sánchez to “destroy the Constitution” with the approval of an amnesty and to recognize the right to self-determination. The event was also held two days before Feijóo’s own investiture debate and without Sánchez’s attempt even having a date on the calendar.
But Génova wanted to make visible this Sunday the street’s rejection of the fact that the PSOE negotiates with the pro-independence parties in exchange for their vote in favor of reissuing the progressive coalition government led by Sánchez. To do this, dozens of buses have been chartered from different parts of the Peninsula to bring the protesters closer to the capital.
Although the PP assures that the event was already planned previously, the party publicly announced this rally after Aznar called for civic mobilization against the amnesty and to emulate the “Enough is enough” of Spanish society against the terrorist group ETA. The event, which was initially going to be held in the Plaza de España, was finally moved to this new location, smaller than the original.
The plaza of Ayuso’s campaigns
On Felipe II Avenue, the Madrid square used by Isabel Díaz Ayuso to open her last two electoral campaigns, Feijóo will also seek to show his rejection of a possible amnesty, which he considers an “infamy”, an “amendment to the entire rule of law ” and a “fraud” to PSOE voters.
In the PP they hope that the call, finally a massive rally and not an act of protest, will be a success because they feel the “cry” of the citizens against the amnesty. The Feijóo rally will also feature interventions from both former presidents Aznar and Rajoy, as well as Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid.
The meeting also took place in the midst of the PP’s attempts to get socialist deputies opposed to possible pacts with the independentists to break voting discipline, as well as criticism of Sánchez by historical leaders of the PSOE.
Preview of Feijóo’s investiture speech
Feijóo has barely advanced some of the lines of his investiture speech to the attendees, and has maintained his argument that the PP defends the Constitution, equality between Spaniards and the legacy of the Spanish transition against a PSOE willing to “sell” Spain.
The PP also wanted to leave a photo of unity after complicated weeks and internal noise due to the setback of the 23-J result, which no one expected, and with the attendance of the entire team of regional presidents of the PP, including Ayuso from Madrid, Andalusian Juanma Moreno, as well as the president of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, who openly questioned Feijóo for his decision to meet with Junts, which the PP leader backtracked on.
It is also the first public event that Feijóo has carried out in Madrid since the election night, when the supporters who approached the party headquarters expecting a celebration found themselves with an insufficient result to govern and chanted “Ayuso, Ayuso.”
Once the reaction of the street has been tested, the next litmus test for Feijóo will be the investiture debate, when he will make his debut as a speaker in the Congress of Deputies.
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