2023-11-16 05:01:00
The president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, promised to act as “a wall against the reactionary agenda” represented by the “retrograde right” of the Popular Party (PP) and Vox when presenting his program for a new mandate within the framework of the debate for his investiture in the Congress of Deputies. Sánchez defended the amnesty bill for Catalan independentists on the first day of the parliamentary debate that will extend to Thursday, when the vote will take place in which he will likely be re-elected to his position.
“If the reactionary right has made something clear, it is that it is not going to stop. That is why in this debate we are choosing something very important: either we raise a wall in the face of these recurring attacks on the values of democratic and constitutional Spain, or We give him safe conduct,” said the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) before Congress, which on Thursday will vote on whether to give him a new mandate.
Sánchez, who in the July elections finished second behind the right-wing Alberto Núñez Feijóo but also obtained the necessary votes to achieve a new mandate, charged against the PP for having sealed government pacts with the far-right Vox after the regional and municipal elections in May. For Sánchez, the leader of the PP acted as “an irresponsible right that whitewashes and legitimizes the extreme right to come to power.”
Defense of the amnesty law
In an armored Congress, the socialist leader affirmed that what the right does is “exude classism, deny the achievements in rights, deny climate change or despise those who love differently from them”, and they defend a “unique and exclusive” of being Spanish. Sánchez stressed that if the PP still considers itself “a state party, it cannot act at the dictates of a far-right organization” and called on Núñez Feijóo to have “responsibility and sense of state.”
When speaking about the amnesty agreed with the Catalan independentists to obtain their support for the investiture, Sánchez said that “nothing we are experiencing is unprecedented in our democracy”, because the PP governments “granted 1,400 pardons in a single day” and They even “pardoned members of Terra Lliure, sentenced for terrorism” while ceding powers to Catalonia and the Basque Country.
“When the right reaches agreements with nationalism it is a gentlemen’s agreement; if it is the left, then it is a complete betrayal of the country,” concluded the socialist politician. He also assessed that the amnesty is necessary to close the wounds opened by this “political crisis of which no one can be proud” and assured: “We have put reunion before revenge. In short, unity over fracture.”
The amnesty law, described as unconstitutional by the opposition, will annul the criminal, administrative and accounting responsibility of all those people linked to the preparation, execution and consequences of the sovereignty process in Catalonia for a decade, between January 1, 2012 and November 13, 2023. The law affects, among others, the former regional president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont, a fugitive from Spanish justice in Brussels.
Mention to Milei
In his one hour and 45 minute speech, Sánchez took the opportunity to show the PP that the former president of the government Mariano Rajoy supported the candidate of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), Javier Milei, in Argentina. Sánchez cited a statement by Milei in which he maintained that “social justice is an aberration and is unfair because it implies unequal treatment under the law” and compared it with a statement made a few months ago by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who pointed out that “social justice is an invention of the left to promote the culture of envy.”
“This coalition government that I represent does not consider social justice an aberration, on the contrary, we consider it the very condition of life in society (because that) is precisely patriotism, being aware that we are all sailing in the same boat and well-being depends on that of others,” said the socialist leader.
Sánchez announced a series of measures aimed at the popular sectors, including the reduction of VAT on food until June 2024 and free public transportation, starting January 1, for all minors, young people and the unemployed. He also committed to allocating 10 euros to the fight against sexist violence for every euro that a municipal autonomous government withdraws from what is allocated for its prevention and elimination.
Núñez Feijóo against “the greater evil”
In turn, Núñez Feijóo took the floor to accuse Sánchez of “political corruption” for having bought “with checks” the votes he needs from the pro-independence parties and called on him to apologize to the constitutionalist Catalans, to the State security forces. and to the voters for lying to them. “You are the greatest evil. You are the problem. As long as you continue, Spain will be condemned to division. This will be his legacy,” said the president of the PP during his speech before the plenary session of Congress.
The acting second vice president and leader of the left-wing Sumar alliance, Yolanda Díaz, urged Sánchez to “continue achieving rights together” and took it for granted that with the coalition government “Spain is a better country today.” She criticized Núñez Feijóo, whom she accused of “setting Spain on fire” and “violating the Constitution.” The popular ones, Díaz warned, “only know one form of government called corruption.”
Meanwhile, the head of Vox, Santiago Abascal, compared Pedro Sánchez to Adolf Hitler and judged that the leader of the PSOE should be in the dock for his agreement with the Catalans. “Of course they will disguise it with the garb of legality, in the same way that nefarious figures like Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro or Adolf Hitler came to power,” warned Abascal, who insisted on the comparison with the Nazi leader who “also came to power through elections and only then did he maneuver to liquidate democracy.
The vote is expected to be this Thursday, after the groups that did not do so on Wednesday speak out and Sánchez will be sworn in because he is guaranteed 179 of the 350 votes in Congress, three above the necessary absolute majority. If this does not happen, 48 hours after the first vote, that is, on Saturday, the candidate intervenes again for 10 minutes, the groups speak again and the voting takes place again in the same way, only in this case Sánchez it would only need a simple majority of the House.
Last Thursday, Sánchez obtained the fundamental support of the seven deputies of Carles Puigdemont’s Catalan separatist formation, Junts per Catalunya, in exchange for the upcoming processing in Parliament of the amnesty law for pro-independence supporters prosecuted by the courts, mainly for their involvement in the attempted secession of Catalonia in 2017, a measure that deeply divides Spanish society. Vox and the PP motorized massive protests in all the cities of Spain that promise to continue in the coming days, which is why the authorities planned a large security operation for this Thursday.
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