A representative of Vox in the Congress of Deputies this Thursday rebuked Martina Velarde, a Podemos deputy, asking her if she had “taken the pill.” It happened in the Lower House, after an intervention by Velarde, and the first to publicly denounce it was Gabriel Rufián, spokesperson for Esquerra Republicana. “The representative of Unidas Podemos went up to her seat after her speech and one of these guys told her ‘take the pill’,” Rufián condemned without mentioning the name of the Vox deputy.
“They are emboldened like never before; If we don’t put our foot on the wall, they are going to eat us,” the ERC spokesperson warned from his seat. “Let them at least be a little embarrassed and not dare to tell a female public representative ‘take the pill’,” Rufián has asked the rest of the groups.
After this, Podemos has formally registered a complaint in the Congress of Deputies, asking the president of the Chamber to “take whatever measures are applicable to condemn and sanction these behaviors.” “This behavior, sexist and absolutely unacceptable, is completely contrary to the regulatory provisions that impose parliamentary decorum and are a clear example of the political violence faced by women who carry out public activities and all state institutions have the obligation to to banish them from the parliamentary premises,” Podemos denounces in the complaint, which is signed by Martina Velarde herself and the party’s general secretary, Ione Belarra.
Velarde had already said on Twitter that it was the deputy Pedro Fernández who asked him that “have you taken the pill?” “It’s what we women who do politics endure having Vox in Congress,” lamented the ‘purple’ deputy, who thanked Rufián “for not remaining silent in the face of the machismo and misogyny of this gang.”
“This is the political violence that the far-right Vox exercises day in and day out against the women of Podemos. They will not pass and they will not overwhelm us,” he added later. Ione Belarra in a tweetin which he sends his “support and affection” to Velarde. “All my support, Martina. It is intolerable that women have to continue enduring comments like this,” responded, for her part, the second vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díazto Velarde’s publication on networks.
A PP deputy: “Martina, my support, we are not going to tolerate it”
The Popular Party has also criticized Vox’s sexist comment towards a political opponent. When the turn of the PP Justice spokesperson, María Jesús Moro, arrived, the deputy put her hand on her chest and addressed her first words to the Podemos representative who was harassed by the deputy Pedro Fernández. “Martina, my support, my consideration, and all the women: we are not going to tolerate it,” Moro said from the rostrum, to which Velarde responded from his seat with a “thank you.”
From the PSOE, spokesperson Patxi López has expressed his “solidarity” with Velarde. “We must act with all force against the deputies who, without any type of education or respect, come to insult, threaten and pervert the functioning of Congress, fueling hatred and anti-politics,” López said in a tweet.
Pedro Fernández, identified and called to order
At the end of the debate in the Lower House, the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, took the floor to identify the Vox deputy Pedro Fernández as the author of the sexist comment against Velarde, and called him to order. “I have been able to verify from the affected deputy, Mrs. Velarde, who is the deputy who uttered the expletives. It is the deputy Fernández Hernández, whom I call to order in this plenary session,” said Armengol, who has denounced the “inappropriate behavior” on the part of this representative and has reminded “the deputies that insults cannot be uttered from the tribune or from the seats, nor sexist behavior like the one we witnessed this morning.”
Armengol then refused to give way to Fernández, who was grimacing from his seat. “No, I will not give you the floor,” the president of the chamber concluded.
Pedro Fernández, one of Vox’s lawyers in the procés case, left the party last February alleging professional reasons “that have to do with teaching”, although he continues to be part of the Vox parliamentary group as a deputy. for Zaragoza. Four years ago, when he was a councilor of Madrid, Fernández already attracted attention by describing the councilors of the Más Madrid bench as “sick.” “Take your Marxist sexual desires and appetites away from my son and lose all hope of indoctrinating them to turn them into sick people like you,” Pedro Fernández said in 2020 towards the Más Madrid councilors.
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