Sánchez completes the assault on RTVE and Congress endorses the councilors proposed by the PSOE and its partners

The first attempt to elect the councilors who correspond to Congress, which took place last Tuesday, needed support from two-thirds of the Chamber, 233 votes, which was unattainable given the opposition of PP and Vox. But the Government reform, approved by decree and validated by Congress the day after the DANA catastrophe, allowed a second vote this Thursday in which the absolute majority (176 votes) was already sufficient.

That minimum bar was not reached last Tuesday, since the PSOE and its allies remained at 174 votes despite having added the BNG deputy, Néstor Rego, who recognizes that he is against the Government reform because it means the same as the Galician nationalists criticize the PP on their regional television.

And there were two blank votes in the Sumar ranks of Compromis deputies, also opposed to the reform and the chosen moment, in the midst of the DANA tragedy. However, its spokesperson, Águeda Micó, promised that this Thursday they would vote in favor to reach that minimum number of 176 votes and not overthrow the election of the councilors.

In this second secret vote there were no errors or absences in the investiture block, given the closeness of the result. The PSOE did not want to depend on the former socialist minister José Luis Ábalos, now in the Mixed Group and investigated by the Supreme Court for the ‘Koldo case’, who did not participate in the vote on Tuesday and whose ballot could have been decisive.

As for the PP and Vox, just as they did last Tuesday, they have chosen not to participate in the final vote. The opposition parties criticize the urgent reform and denigrate the political profile of a good part of the eleven candidates promoted by the PSOE and its allies.

Of the eleven names, six have been promoted by the PSOE, two by Sumar and one each by ERC, Junts, PNV and Podemos. In this way, they left the four seats in the Senate for the PP, since in the Upper House the ‘popular’ have an absolute majority and no other force can approve councilors.

The candidates

A good part of the candidates chosen by the PSOE and its partners are closely linked to the parties that have been proposed to them. Thus, the Podemos candidate is the musical announcer Mariano Muniesa, specialized in the world of heavy metal and rock in general, who was in Pablo Iglesias’ candidacy in the 2021 elections in the Community of Madrid, in position number 30. .

For its part, Junts presented Miquel Calçada ‘Mikimoto’, a TV3 presenter who was on the Junts pel Sí lists and proposed as senator. ERC’s bet is Sergi Sol, a close collaborator of Oriol Junqueras, while the PNV chose the former Minister of Education of the Government of Navarra and former representative of Geroa Bai María Roncesvalles.

From Sumar, they have promoted the journalist María Teresa Martín, who was a member of the RTVE Intercenter Committee for CCOO, and the former En Comú deputy Marta Ribas, who at the last minute left the historic TVE journalist Paloma del Río off the list .

The PSOE, for its part, has chosen Esther de la Mata, Director of Communication for Minister Félix Bolaños; Angélica Rubio, director of elplural.com and who worked in Moncloa with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero; the journalist and writer Mercedes de Pablos, who directed Canal Sur when the PSOE governed and who has been part of socialist lists in Seville; and the singer-songwriter Rosa León, who was once a PSOE councilor in the Madrid City Council.

And his sixth name is the former RTVE Content Director José Pablo López, dismissed in March by the previous interim president Elena Sánchez amid the controversial signing of David Broncano, and who appears in the pools as a possible candidate for the presidency of the Corporation.

For its part, the Popular Parliamentary Group (GPP) in the Senate has proposed this Thursday the former director of TVE Eladio Jareño, the former deputy and former ‘popular’ senator Rubén Moreno, the TVE journalist Marina Vila and the director of the Tax Agency during the government of José María Aznar, Ignacio Ruiz Jarabo, as candidates to be part of the Board of Directors of RTVE.