2023-09-24 18:13:53
The conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo This Sunday he led an event with tens of thousands of people, and indicated that he will go to the investiture debate in the Spanish Parliament this Tuesday, without chances of success because it does not have the necessary votes, but he said that he will use that platform to expose Pedro Sánchez’s concessions “who threatens to give in to the blackmail of the Catalan independentists to try to stay in power.”
Since King Felipe ordered him to take the Parliamentary exam as the winner of the legislative elections on July 23, the leader of the Popular Party (PP, right) has tried unsuccessfully to get the four votes he needs to be sworn in as president of the government. However, to do so, he needed the support of a regional party, a circumstance that is incompatible with his far-right partners in Vox, who are fierce critics of regional formations.
“Even if it costs me the presidency of the government, I will defend that Spain is a group of free and equal citizens”Feijóo said this Sunday, pointing out that “we will not accept the blackmail of the Catalan regional parties.” He was applauded by a crowd estimated at around 50,000 people in a central area of Madrid.
“I will or will not be president of the government, now or soon, but as far as I am concerned what will remain for Spain will be freedom, equality and dignity,” stressed the 62-year-old politician, before the audience that chanted “president, president”.
Despite being defeated, the investiture debate can serve Feijóo “to present himself with a program and an alternative and contrasting very clearly with Sánchez” for the future, Astrid Barrio, professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia.
Like this Sunday, the leader of the right has dedicated the last few weeks to attacking the president of the outgoing government, the socialist Sánchez, for the concessions that he will have to make to the Catalan independentists to retain power.
It happens that, with their votes becoming the key that can give Sánchez another term in the presidency, the Catalans demand numerous conditions, but the main one is that they want “an absolute amnesty” for all the leaders who were condemned for the independence attempt that even led its leader, Carles Puigdemont, to have to take refuge in Belgium.
“What Sánchez does is an attack on the laws”
Feijóo criticizes that there is any type of amnesty for all those prosecuted for the secessionist attempt in Catalonia in 2017: “This amnesty does not fit in the Constitution, what Sánchez does is an attack on the laws and the division of powers, unjust and amoral.”
“If Sánchez accepted this blackmail, it would be an aggravated fraud, because he said that he had rejected this amnesty until now, but he would accept it when the Catalan votes are essential”Feijóo said this Sunday.
Under Spanish law, Sánchez will be able to try to be sworn in after Feijóo fails in Parliament this Tuesday. The investiture debate will take place on Tuesday with a speech by the conservative leader, and the voting will take place on Wednesday, when the candidate needs a majority of 176 of the 350 deputies. There will be another vote on Friday, where more yeses than noes would be enough, but barring some major surprise, analysts point out that Feijóo will not have the necessary support.
Without investiture, a period of two months will open at the end of which new legislative elections would be called, in January according to legal deadlines. Of course, that will happen if Sánchez does not manage to form a government before, which could ensure those Catalan votes. Of course, the price to pay, that of the amnesty, will be high, not only with his political rivals, but also in the opinion of millions of Spaniards.
Sánchez is counting on being able to achieve the necessary 176 votes, with the independence parties Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Together for Catalonia (JxCat), as happened in recent days when a socialist was elected president of Congress or the ban on voting was lifted. express themselves in Catalan, Galician or Basque in the chamber, another demand of the separatists.
But approving the amnesty, which would cover people not only convicted but even fugitives from Spanish justice for the events of 2017, such as Carles Puigdemont, is a task of high political tension for Sánchez.
The measure is rejected not only by the right but also by voices within the Socialist Partylike the former president of the government Felipe González, who on Wednesday launched: “We cannot allow ourselves to be blackmailed.”
Although Sánchez, who already pardoned some Catalan independence supporters in prison for the failed secession in 2021, has not yet publicly stated a position on the amnesty, he did affirm that it will be “coherent with the policy of normalization and stabilization of the political situation in Catalonia” that has continued since coming to power in 2018.
AFP/HB
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