The reproaches made by the former vice president, who last Tuesday complained of not even being invited to the event, uncovered this week the discomfort of other party members
The week’s political debate served the President of the Government and the PSOE leadership to divert the focus from something that at another time could have spoiled the party: the lacklusterness of an act initially presented as an occasion to surrender to the pride of belonging to a historic party that has governed and helped transform Spain for more than half of the last four decades.
The reproaches made by former Vice President Alfonso Guerra, who last Tuesday complained that he had not even been invited to the event, uncovered this week the discomfort of other members of the party who consider that, despite his statement, the act was conceived exclusively for greater glory of Sánchez himself.
In Ferraz they reject that it was this feeling that explains the absence of most of the barons, with the exception of the Extremaduran, Guillermo Fernández-Vara, who is part of the executive, and the general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE, Juan Espadas, who acted as host. They say that the event was going to have been held in Madrid and that the decision to change it, at the request of González himself, made it impossible for many leaders to get close, among other things, due to the difficulty in finding trains on a long weekend. «I myself -argued a member of the management- I had to come by car.
Sources close to the former president, however, had already warned that he was also “hurt” by how things had been done with Guerra and with other representatives of 1982 socialism and that he would say something during his speech this Saturday. That’s how it went. Almost on stage. «To commemorate is to bring to memory. Remembering is doing it with the heart. And I try to search (here), and I regret not being able to, this singular character who raised my hand in the window of the Palace, who was Alfonso Guerra », he said, evoking the photo of the night of his great electoral victory. “And I want to have it in this hand,” he added.
“Indifference”
Some regional leaders explain that it was “indifference” rather than anger that led to Ferraz’s way of organizing what, on the other hand, was a large rally before more than 3,000 people, at the Palace of Exhibitions and Congresses in Seville, a city that the PSOE points out as key to the municipal elections in May. In the absence of general secretaries of federations and other recognizable faces, there was a landing of ministers. Up to nine. Some members of González’s cabinet were also present, such as José Barrionuevo and José Luis Corcuera, and former Andalusian presidents José Rodríguez de la Borbolla and Susana Díaz.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whom the former president did not spare a discreet blow, covered his absence with a video in which he explained that he had had to travel to Brazil to be at the side of his “friend” Lula Da Silva, who this Sunday faces Jair Bolsonaro in the second round of the presidential elections.
In his speech, González not only looked at the past. In addition, he assigned duties to the current Executive: the main one, the fight against inequality. Even ahead of advances in rights. And to the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, he sent a warning: “taxation needs to be reviewed from top to bottom.”
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