The first session of the debate for the third investiture of Pedro Sánchez anticipates what the legislature will be like: very angry, inside and outside Congress. The socialist candidate asked for the vote as opposition to the “reactionary” model of the PP and Vox, whose description occupied most of his speech. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, exploited Sánchez’s change of position regarding the amnesty and anticipated a constant mobilization in the street. What follows is an analysis of the interventions of both politicians, full of contradictions and messages between the lines.
Pedro Sánchez’s speech
“In the name of Spain and in defense of harmony between Spaniards We are going to grant an amnesty to people prosecuted for the processes. It is a measure requested by a very relevant part of Catalan society, which is approved by 80% of its political representatives, as well as by a large majority of forces present in this Chamber, and which may not be shared by many citizens. I am very aware of this and I want to tell you that I greatly respect your opinions and emotions, but the circumstances are what they are and we have to make a virtue of necessity for reasons of general interest.”
Sánchez named the elephant in the room, the “amnesty”, when he had been speaking for almost an hour and a half in the Congress rostrum. It was the most complicated part of his story because until the general elections last July he had denied that this measure was constitutional and had boasted that the independentists had not achieved it. As he did in the Federal Committee of the PSOE last October, Sánchez admitted that the amnesty is a toll to pay to remain in the Government: “The circumstances are what they are and it is time to make a virtue of necessity,” he said, at the same time that tried to justify the “general interest” that motivates the law and the pacts necessary for its investiture in the rejection of the alternative, that is, the reproduction at the national level of the autonomous pacts of the PP and Vox, which it defined several times throughout throughout his speech as a “reactionary wave.”
“Nothing we are experiencing is unprecedented in our democracy. Everything was done before by Popular Party governments, which granted 1,400 pardons in a single day. Members of Terra Lliure convicted of terrorism during an investiture were pardoned. What a scandal, Mr. Feijóo! Those who launch proclamations and slogans saying that all of Spain should mobilize against this evil Sánchez, handed over numerous powers to the autonomous governments of the Basque Country and Catalonia when they needed the votes of Catalan and Basque nationalism and as far as I know, none of those concessions weakened Spain. nor did it corrupt our democracy, nor are we moving towards a dictatorship.”
Others did it and before me, Sánchez said when, to defend the amnesty law, he recalled that PP governments had approved pardons from power, such as the 1,400 pardons granted by the Executive of José María Aznar in a single day, in December 2000. As for those of the Catalan terrorist organization Tierra Lliure, they were approved during the first PP government, in 1996, but it was the previous socialist executive, chaired by Felipe González, who launched them: In fact, it was one of the last pardon measures signed by the PSOE Cabinet, then in office, but it was not made effective because in the transfer of powers to the pardon file the administrative procedure was not given and it was not published in the Bulletin State Official. The Popular Party, as Sánchez recalled, did agree to transfer powers when they needed the votes of the Basque and Catalan nationalists for the investiture. For example, in 1996, Aznar ceded traffic powers to Catalonia, the transfer of the management of ports of general interest to the autonomies and the reform of land and coastal laws.
“Coexistence has returned to the streets, dialogue has returned to the institutions (…) What do the vast majority of citizens prefer: the Catalonia of 2017 or the Catalonia of 2023? “This measure of grace can help us overcome the fracture.”.
Sánchez used, for the amnesty, the same argument that he resorted to to justify the pardons of the process: pacification and coexistence. But in doing so, he incurred a double contradiction: on the one hand, according to his own account prior to the investiture, Catalonia was already pacified, and on the other, the political and street tension has not disappeared, it has changed location: from Catalonia , to the massive protest concentrations called by the PP in the Spanish capitals and those that have occurred in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid, without prior authorization and encouraged by Vox.
“The PP decided to bless the extreme right and opened the doors to five regional governments, five councils and 135 city councils. It gave him the power to affect the lives of more than 12 million Spaniards (…) We have to choose if we want to continue advancing in the dignity of work, in the empowerment of women, in respect for sexual diversity, in the integration of the migrant population (…) or support the prophets of hate “They want to lock women in kitchens, LGTBI people in closets and migrants in refugee camps.”
Sánchez dedicated most of his initial speech and his reply to Feijóo to present his investiture bloc as an alternative to the pacts of the right and the extreme right, that is, the candidate for the presidency of the Government of Spain presented himself as an opposition or containment dam of the bipartite regional executives of PP and Vox, their measures and ideology. Thus, the socialist leader recalled that the ultra members of the popular party deny gender violence and climate change and accused Feijóo of being the PP leader who has most favored the advance of the extreme right in Spain. Although he has governed since the 2018 motion of censure, Sánchez also went back, on numerous occasions, to the inheritance received from the Governments of Mariano Rajoy, for example, when talking about the cuts that weigh down the welfare state.
“Today, in this Chamber we are going to listen to and abide by the will of the Spanish people expressed through their representatives as recognized by our Constitution. What will be expressed today in this Chamber and tomorrow has the maximum legitimacysince it is derived from the democratic will of the citizens of our country expressed with their vote.”
After several weeks in which the PP and Vox have questioned the legitimacy of the Government that will emerge from this investiture debate, Sánchez reclaimed his majority after the failed attempt by Feijóo, who did not gather the necessary votes last September to be sworn in as president. . The socialist leader mocked, in his reply to the leader of the Popular Party, the approaches of the PP to the PSOE – “to repeal Sanchismo” – and to Junts, a party that they now demonize. Also from the phrase: “I am not president because I don’t want to”, which Feijóo has repeated in recent months to highlight his rejection of the demands of the independentists, ignoring that even if he decided to accept them he would not have enough votes to be inaugurated because he would lose support. from Vox.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s speech
“This investiture is born from a fraud. What is being brought to the House today was not voted on at the polls. (…) It is an exercise in political corruption. Making decisions against the general interest in exchange for personal benefits has no other name. (…) He has not gotten anyone’s support. “He bought it by signing checks that we will all pay.”
After quoting statements by Sánchez assuring that he would never make an agreement with Bildu, that he would never accept the amnesty and that he would bring Puigdemont back to Spain so that he would be held accountable by Justice, Feijóo insisted, as all PP leaders have been doing, that the investiture of the socialist leader, despite having the necessary votes, is an electoral fraud because the amnesty did not appear in the program with which the PSOE presented itself to the elections. It’s true. Nor did PP voters choose the party’s post-electoral pacts with the extreme right or the increase in all taxes after the 2011 elections after Mariano Rajoy had promised to lower them all in the electoral campaign. None of this makes the governments chaired by the popular people illegitimate.
“I know that it needs the resignation of the Spanish people. They are not going to have that silent Spain. They will have to listen to it in the squares. Like last Sunday. (…) Let’s talk about coexistence, we already see that Spain is enchanted. If the amnesty is so good for coexistence, why wasn’t it approved sooner? “They have been governing for five years.”
Feijóo made it clear what his main weapon of opposition to the Government will be: the street. He claimed the success of the protest rallies called last Sunday by the PP throughout Spain and used them to deny the argument of pacification and improvement of coexistence with which Sánchez defends the amnesty law. He also reminded the popular leader of the old guard of the PSOE that has expressed his opposition to the measure, among whom he cited Felipe González, Alfonso Guerra or Nicolás Redondo.
“There is no ideological majority in this coalition, unless Junts has buried all that remains of CiU or the PNV has decided to change the tractor for the hammer and sickle. (…) What do we do with Podemos? Do we give him a ministry? What do you think, Mrs. Montero? With how well she has done in Equality and she is going to cease as Minister of Equality.”
The president of the PP denied that the amalgamation of parties that will favor Sánchez’s investiture can be called a progressive or left-wing coalition. He was referring to Junts, the former Convergence, and the PNV, a liberal economic party, and anticipated the discrepancies that may exist in that bloc, since some Government measures, such as the tax on energy companies or banking, cause distrust among the Basque nationalists. The opposition leader also did not miss the unrest of Podemos within Sumar and the fact that Irene Montero is not going to repeat as Minister of Equality after the failure of the law of only yes is yes, which had to be amended in Parliament and that at the time it was a collegiate decision of the Council of Ministers.
“You have come to insult everyone, even those who are no longer alive: President Fraga, President Aznar, President Rajoy… Yes, I know they would prefer these two not to live, but they live.. You have come to insult the regional presidents, especially Ayuso and his family (…)”.
Feijóo raised the tone several decibels in his reply to Sánchez, whom he even accused of preferring that former presidents Aznar and Rajoy were dead. The leader of the PP, who in his first speech as president of the party, in April 2022, promised to “remove Spanish politics from confrontation and permanent hyperbole” because “moderation,” he said, “is not lukewarmness,” he suggested. that the next thing could be a self-determination referendum – the agreement between the PSOE and Junts does not include it -, a new amnesty when the independentists repeat the coup, if the crimes, he stated, have not already been “eliminated from the Penal Code” , or an “ETA amnesty.” “What is the hooded pact with Mr. Otegi?” he asked himself. He also defended Ayuso, referred to on several occasions throughout the debate, and whom Sánchez referred to as the “intellectual leader of the PP”, that is, the one who sets Feijóo’s agenda and tone, as he did with his predecessor, Pablo Casado. .
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