The judicial fronts that the Government faces will not alter for the moment the unstable balance of its parliamentary support. Both Sumar and the main partners of the Executive are cautious about the progress of the investigation of the Koldo case and they ask that it be investigated until the end, but they refuse to participate in the strategy of harassment and demolition that the PP has undertaken, which this week registered a complaint in court based on anonymous testimonies published by a media outlet. Only We can have pressed these days with the matter, fueling suspicions that Pedro Sánchez was aware of what was happening in the Ministry of Transport when the plot was in operation.
The courts have not ruled good news in recent days for the Government. The report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has tightened the siege against former Minister José Luis Ábalos for the plot that his advisor Koldo García allegedly directed when both were in Transport, at the worst of the pandemic. This documentation was what served as an excuse for the PP this weekend to announce the complaint and prepare a new extremely harsh control session this Wednesday.
That same day, in the middle of parliamentary debatethe Supreme Court announced the opening of a case against the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, a movement that the PP took advantage of to once again charge against the Government. The leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, had requested minutes before the resignation of Sánchez, whom he considered “sentenced.”
After Wednesday’s session, in which all PP deputies took advantage of their questions to attack the government, for one reason or another, this Thursday Feijóo’s party has explored a new strategy: dividing the Government’s parliamentary majority. “The one who directs the corruption plot is Pedro Sánchez,” he stated this Thursday in an interview in enRadio his parliamentary spokesperson, Miguel Tellado, to draw a line between the PSOE and the coalition of Yolanda Díaz, whom he has described as “honest.”
At one point in the conversation, Tellado said that at the reception on October 12 he met her and told her personally. “The honest part” of the Government “either turns away or gets lost,” He pointed out that he transferred.
A line of argument that his boss has deepened hours later, after a meeting in Brussels with leaders of the popular political family before the meeting of the European Council. Feijóo has asked the partners to be “consistent with some of their previous decisions.” A message, although without naming it, directed at the PNV and its decision in 2018 to support a PSOE motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy after the Gürtel ruling.
“I advise your partners to review their position and to be consistent with some of their previous decisions and to keep in mind that in the end changes in countries are sometimes inevitable and, in my opinion, a political change in Spain is inevitable. ”, he said.
But the PNV spokesperson in Congress had already involuntarily responded to that message a few days ago. In an interview in Basque WaveAitor Esteban considered that the PP had gotten into a “rush” with its complaint and by trying to point out irregular financing of the PSOE in this case despite the absence of any indication.
“As with everything lately, Feijóo is in a rush and has to make this move after a week that started quite badly for his political group,” Esteban said in reference to the PP’s outbursts after it was published that the reform of the law on criminal records, which they had supported in the commission and in the plenary session of Congress, could benefit ETA prisoners.
Esteban asked that all explanations be given by the Government, but recalled that the Civil Guard report “it does not talk about party financing” but rather it remains “in the hands of some.” “That is the key, if everything ends there or if there was party financing. But for the moment, beyond information in a medium that is not widely disseminated that does not include the sources or the data, there has been nothing of that,” he concluded. What the PNV spokesperson did recognize is that the Government is not in a “comfortable” situation, but not so much because of its judicial situation, but because of the difficulties in consolidating a parliamentary majority. It all depends on approving Budgets that are already being negotiated with them and that depend above all on the decision of Together.
“We are not going to accept pressure”
This line of argument is the one followed by other parties such as Esquerra Republicana or EH Bildu. The Republicans understand that the PP is in a strategy of attrition that they will not support. “We are not going to accept pressure nor will we dance to the tune of a party, the PP, that has committed crimes, commits crimes and will commit crimes,” maintain sources from the parliamentary group who specify, however, that if “a case of corruption ends up emerging from this whole tangle that splashes the Government squarely”, ERC “will act accordingly”.
The Basque independentists also convey their request to investigate “all extremes and actions of possible corruption” that could affect both the PSOE and the rest of the parliamentary forces. “We have zero tolerance towards any hint of corruption, as shown by the fact that EH Bildu is practically the only political force with zero cases of corruption,” defend sources from the group. But they separate the case from any budget negotiations or other laws of the legislature. And they also criticize the PP for using the case politically, using the judges at its service.
“The attempt of the PP to use the case politically, resorting to justice and using the judges at its service is obvious and notorious once again, a partisan bias that has been verified in recent months through the actions of different judges, resulting in increasing discredit, lack of impartiality and objectivity of the Spanish justice system,” they maintain.
Junts, as usual, does not give many clues about how the negotiations for the Budget are going, the thermometer that will measure whether or not Carles Puigdemont’s supporters support the continuity of the legislature. In the party they often repeat that they are not part of any bloc and that their support for the Government cannot be taken for granted, but this week a significant event occurred: Laura Borrás, president of Junts, said in an interview on Telecinco that they were not ruling out support a possible motion of censure of the PP. After sources from her party denied it and the general secretary of the party considered that scenario a “fantasy,” the leader herself had to come out to clarify her words, although she did so by accusing the press of having distorted what she said.
Those who have been most critical of the Government in this matter of the Koldo case have been the leaders of Podemos. The party has suggested that Sánchez was aware of what was happening in the Ministry of Transport with the plot and its general secretary, Ione Belarra, reproached the president for “corruption” in his Government during the last control session.
Yolanda Díaz encourages the PP to present a motion of censure
In Sumar they have closed ranks with the President of the Government regarding the Koldo case. They believe in the coalition that Sánchez has given all the explanations and trust that the case will not leave the perimeter of the ministry in the Ábalos stage, to whom Anticorruption this Thursday He asked to investigate.
“This complaint is doomed to failure,” said the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, in a press conference. “Given the resounding failure of the PP, there will be a progressive coalition government for a while,” predicted the leader of Sumar in the Executive, who has asked Feijóo to return to that alleged “social turn” given that the only alternative he has left, he noted , it is a motion of censure. “Maybe we have to encourage him to do it so that the Spanish people can see what the democratic reality is,” he suggested.
Díaz also defended “at all costs” the work of the State Attorney General’s Office. “I want to do it forcefully and I want to denounce that the PP’s way of doing politics is inappropriate for a democracy. Not everything is worth it. Institutions must be respected. I ask the PP to stop turning all institutions into a field of evildoing and attacks on the common good,” he concluded.
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