Pedro Sánchez does not hide his satisfaction after the Catalan elections last Sunday. The success of the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC), winner in votes and seats, has come at one of the most critical moments of the five years of the President of the Government’s mandate and after a period of reflection in which he said he had seriously considered The resignation. Now, three weeks after leading his people to total confusion with that announcement, Sánchez has received an electoral balm and assures that he is no longer only thinking about reinvigorating the legislature but also about running for another term. He considers that the result of the Catalan elections represents support for his policies—pardons, amnesty law (still in parliamentary process) and suppression of the crime of sedition, among others—and he assumes for sure that Salvador Illa will be the new president of the Generalitat.
This Friday, in an interview given to the program Red Hot of the Sixth, The head of the Government has ruled out that the PSC is going to step aside to allow a Government of Carles Puigdemont, Junts candidate, who also wants to attempt the investiture. Puigdemont, the PSOE leader has said, “has to accept reality.” And “reality is reality: they don’t give you the numbers.” He has thus denied the scenario that the PP has been warning about for days: that Sánchez sacrifice Illa’s presidency in Catalonia in exchange for retaining Junts’ support for the Government in the Congress of Deputies.
Sánchez has declared dead processes independence, unlike Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the PP, and has mocked what he considers internal contradictions of the popular party on this issue. “In Catalonia they say that he is dead, and in Madrid, he is not. In the campaign they did not talk about pardons or amnesty,” he stressed. And he has given some clues as to where the messages of the PSOE electoral campaign will go for the European elections, which begin next Friday: “[Los populares] They are in their alignment with the xenophobic discourse of the extreme right. “It is a very serious setback.”
The president assures that a new time has opened in Catalonia that will be – as long as the socialist Illa governs – focused on the “management” of public services. “We have to face problems head-on. [El independentismo] has focused the debate on Catalan politics in the last ten years. This [el resultado del 12-M] “It is overcoming a serious crisis,” he said. The president is convinced that this new situation in Catalonia can be part of his legacy, despite the “legitimate” doubts he had with the pardons and the amnesty law (which he flatly denied that he was going to grant until a few days before granting it). ). “Let’s vindicate that political line. Those of us who said we had to face these problems head on were right. Today Spain is growing more and creating more jobs than six years ago. Spain is more united than in 2017. This is the result of political bets, of forgiveness, of regeneration,” he insisted.
The socialist Illa, in any case, needs the yes of ERC to carry out his investiture. Sánchez has asserted that no messages have been exchanged in recent hours with the Republicans or with Junts. “Political parties have their internal processes. Democracy also has its moments. On June 10, the new Board must be constituted [del Parlament]. I think that what Catalan society would not accept would be a repeat election. It is imperative to bet on a new Government, and the one who has the numbers is Salvador Illa,” he stressed.
The five days of reflection
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When asked if he would do again what he did when he took five days of “reflection” to decide whether to resign or not, the president responded that this is not something that is planned but that “these things happen,” and he has returned. to assure that he did not consult anyone, not even his wife, before writing his “letter to the citizens.” “I have been suffering for ten years, [yo], my partner and my family. It’s harassment. “I know that they don’t do it because my name is Pedro Sánchez, they do it because I represent the PSOE, which takes Spain to positive levels,” he continued.
Regarding those days – between Wednesday, April 24 and Monday, April 29 – in which he plunged the PSOE into total uncertainty, the president has reported that the decision to continue was made early Saturday morning, when on Sunday he went out with his wife to take a walk through the countryside and that, that afternoon, he prepared the speech for the next day, when in an appearance from La Moncloa he announced that he would continue to head the Government. And that his wife, Begoña Gómez, told him when she found out, after the fact, about the letter, that she should not resign.
Begoña Gómez has also been at the center of the political debate for weeks. The PP accuses the couple of incurring a conflict of interest and influence peddling due to the public aid granted by the Executive to three companies that have had some connection with the study centers where Sánchez’s wife has worked. The president maintains that there is no irregularity. He defended it this way today:
-Do you think Begoña Gómez has done everything well?
-Of course. There is no case. There is mud.
“We are talking about a huge hoax,” Sánchez added, and recalled that, after the European elections, he will take measures – without specifying – to combat hoaxes and misinformation. “Here we have Trojan horses that undermine the democratic quality of this country. This happens in all democracies: in Brazil, in Argentina, in Europe. Europe became aware in 2020 and presented an action plan and, from that framework, initiatives hang that will have to be extrapolated to governments,” he said. Visibly upset, the president has assumed that his wife will be called to testify for the PP in the Senate investigation commission on the Koldo case. “They are not going to break me,” Sánchez remarked.
Regarding the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary – blocked since 2018 – the head of the Government has announced that there will be measures in the coming months, but without giving more details, and has once again indicated that his intention is not to change the majorities. legal terms of election of the members (as Sumar asks to be able to renew the body without having to count on the PP).
The investigation of the State Attorney General’s Office
Sánchez has also given his opinion on the opening of preliminary proceedings that a judge has agreed upon following the complaint filed against the Prosecutor’s Office by Alberto González Amador, boyfriend of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP). The businessman, who is being investigated for alleged tax fraud and document falsification, accuses the public ministry of an alleged crime of revealing secrets for publishing a press release in which he denied the distorted information that had previously been disseminated by the Madrid president’s team. about the procedure. “The Prosecutor’s Office is independent. The prosecutor has the full confidence of the Government,” said Sánchez.
-Do you think there is a judicial and political operation to put an end to the prosecutor?
—Politics, without a doubt.
-And judicial?
“I don’t get involved there because I am the president of the Government of Spain.
The president will appear on May 22 in Congress, where he plans to announce the date on which he will recognize Palestine as a State in a statement along with other countries. This recognition will not occur on May 21, a date that he had considered, but it will occur in the “following days.”
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