The absence of Pedro Sánchez at the funeral for the DANA victims held in the Valencia cathedral is a new, especially significant manifestation of the President of the Government’s lack of empathy in the face of a tragedy that took more than two hundred lives. Sánchez left Paiporta on the run and has not returned to Valencia. When he said “I’m fine” he showed that his concern about the destructive consequences of the flood was limited to what it could have on his permanence in La Moncloa, another episode of political narcissism that has become a hallmark of the form that Sánchez has to understand the exercise of power, a mere succession of opportunities to look in the mirror. This Monday was the day on which the president of the central government accompanied four hundred relatives of the DANA victims, without ministers sent by force and at the last minute, to bear the bad time of looking into the faces of some Valencians who are still stunned because the Government of Spain was only going to help them if they asked it. Sánchez continues to flee from Valencia and hopes to overcome this ordeal by satiating public opinion with the slow agony of Carlos Mazón. Society, however, has not accepted being forced to choose between Sánchez and Mazón, with shared responsibilities in the consequences of this disaster. The difference, for now, is that Mazón stayed in Paiporta enduring insults and mud balls and this Monday he was at the funeral with the families of the deceased.
And just as in Paiporta, Sánchez avoids appearing with the Kings of Spain, who have fulfilled their commitment to return to Valencia after that tense visit in which Felipe VI and Doña Letizia did not spare a single minute of the tension of the neighbors. In a parliamentary monarchy, the Government and the Crown must interact in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. It is an error – or malice – to think that the Crown occupies a position submissive to political power and that it can ignore the representative functions of the Head of State. Sánchez’s absence is not symbolic, but materially political, directly related to his utilitarian sense of power and relationship with the Crown. For this reason, in Valencia, the Head of State once again ensured the presence of the State when it was most necessary, this time in a funeral mass that reflects the religious sentiment of the majority of citizens, something that Pedro Sánchez seems not to want to understand or accept. . That the secularist country par excellence, France, celebrated the reopening of Notre Dame in style demonstrates to what extent these extremist attitudes of Sánchez are contrary to the values of liberal democracy, in whose origin the defense of religious freedom must be identified. . Sánchez’s alternative agenda, yesterday afternoon, was not a commitment of similar importance to that of accompanying the relatives of the 222 killed by DANA in their mourning. He had an urgent meeting with Robin Zen Yuqun and another with the president of the International Paralympic Committee.
If more than two hundred deaths do not justify the presence of the President of the Government at the funeral attended by the Kings, the problem that Sánchez has with the perception of his political responsibilities is serious. It was already known, but yesterday it became evident in a particularly inopportune way, at a time of manifest disaffection towards institutions that after failing in the tragedy were obliged to try to restore the trust of society, at least symbolically sharing a feeling loss collective.
#Editorial #ABC #Valencia
