“We were right.” This is how forceful and blunt Pedro Sánchez has begun his analysis in the PSOE Executive of the result of the Catalan elections, in which the PSC has obtained a comfortable victory in both seats and votes that places Salvador Illa in the best position of the candidates who have competed to be the next president of the Generalitat. The President of the Government has claimed “the healing effect of forgiveness”, sources from the socialist leadership have told EL PAÍS, in reference to what they understand as the policy of detente and reunion in recent years to put an end to the processesfirst with the pardons, then with the reform of the Penal Code to repeal the crime of sedition and the reform of embezzlement and finally with the amnesty law that will be approved in Congress in the coming weeks.
Another conclusion that the PSOE leader has drawn from 12-M is that Catalans “want to stay and be part of the attractive Spain” that the socialists are “building.” For the first time since 1984, the Catalan nationalist parties – later pro-independence parties – will not gain an absolute majority in the Parliament. Faced with the doubts of those who maintain that he would be willing to sacrifice Illa in exchange for ensuring governability in Congress, Sánchez has denied that possibility. “The Government of Catalonia will decide in Catalonia,” he declared, while insisting on giving it full prominence in the negotiations to obtain the necessary support for Salvador Illa to be inaugurated. The Catalan socialist leader, he has stressed, has “the absolute confidence and support” of the PSOE Executive. But Ferraz asks for calm and time and assumes that the negotiations, which Illa will lead, will take time. Meanwhile, Sánchez has advised the Socialist Executive to savor the result. “Let’s enjoy it a lot,” the president said, according to several attendees at the meeting. In reference to the PP, which has gone from 3 to 15 seats, the President of the Government has observed that despite its improvement it will be “inconsequential” for the governability of Catalonia, as has already happened in Euskadi.
The atmosphere in the federal executive, reflected by the smiling faces of its fifty members, has been placid and relaxed. Sánchez, who arrived at the conclave accompanied by María Jesús Montero, number two of the Executive and the PSOE, and the Secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdán, was received with a round of applause. It was the first of many others, unlike the more restrained celebration after the Basque elections, in which the socialists grew and strengthened their position with a view to the reissue of a coalition government with the PNV. In that Executive Sánchez already influenced this idea: “You can’t see the change in the cycle no matter how hard some try.” He did so in reference to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s unfulfilled predictions.
Sánchez himself declared himself “happy” at various times during the meeting, which lasted an hour and a half. The general secretary of the PSOE has also recalled the “suffering” that officials throughout the party hierarchy have suffered since October last year, from the pacts prior to his investiture to the agreements with the independentists to process the amnesty law. Since then, hundreds of houses in the town, local headquarters of the PSOE, have been the object of vandalism and socialist cadres have suffered attacks – such as the former mayor of Ponferrada, Olegario Ramón – and have even had to carry an escort again as they did in the past. in that they were targets of ETA, as has happened to Santos Cerdán.
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After Sánchez, a dozen members of the PSOE leadership have asked to speak. The tone has been similar in all of them. The central messages have referred to Illa’s victory as the triumph of “moderation” and as a sign that the Catalans have emphatically left at the polls “that they want to turn the page and the end of the day.” processes”. “A new moment is opening in Catalonia and the citizens have supported the PSC agenda, the socialist agenda of coexistence, of understanding. Now is the time for dialogue and looking to the future in Catalonia,” said Iratxe García upon his arrival in Ferraz. The current president of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament and number two on the PSOE lists for the European elections has stressed that the result will serve as a boost for them in the June 9 elections: “Of course “Let’s go for the victory.” This has precisely been another of the central messages of the analysis carried out by the leadership of the main government party. According to the general feeling of those who participated in the closed-door meeting, 12-M leaves “the best possible result to face the next European elections.” The Popular Party, which won 13 MEPs in 2019 compared to the PSOE’s 21, intends to turn them into a new plebiscite against Sánchez. The socialists, on the other hand, believe that the result will be more equal than what the PP expects and predict that Feijóo may have a problem again if he does not meet expectations.
For Elma Saiz, Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, “the Catalans have spoken clearly and what they have done is endorse policies based on dialogue, the search for consensus and valuing plurality.”
The former vice-lehendakari Idoia Mendia has stressed that the PSC result “is a clear example of the commitment that Pedro Sánchez made from the beginning, for coexistence, for institutionalized relations with the Catalan parties and for dialogue, and has asked calm and time before addressing the pacts so that there is a Government with a socialist president.
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