Saturday, May 13, 2023, 18:41
The Socialists ruminated six months ago, with different intensity, the fear of the impact that the suppression of the crime of sedition from the Penal Code and the reduction of embezzlement for which the leaders of the ‘procés’ were convicted could have on the electorate. The pact reached to appease tensions with an essential partner of the Government such as Esquerra, in exchange for backing the Budgets that tied the end of the legislature, made a dent in the PSOE barons who were dissatisfied with the president’s alliances with the independentistas, but also in others not inclined to discuss him. It was internally frightening that citizens would interpret the easing of penalties for embezzlement as a cover for the corrupt and, especially, that a sort of domino effect would occur, in the manner of “it’s only yes” with sexual offenders, that it would burst at the gates of the campaign of this May 28. It has not happened and the Socialists had been able to breathe a bit of peace of mind, even though the PP is stirring up the hornet’s nest again, relying on the European Commission’s plan to harmonize – upwards in the case of Spain – the penalties for taking away public funds or diverting them of its legitimate purposes. But once this leak is contained, the gap has opened unexpectedly, and at a very delicate moment, on the flank of EH Bildu.
The renewed denunciation by his center-right rivals of Sánchez’s “dangerous friendships” with whom they have joined the democratic game without condemning the terrorist past, after including the coalition of Arnaldo Otegi to some forty of those convicted of links to violence on their lists elections in the Basque Country and Navarra, forced the president to have to pronounce on this thorn in the middle of the bouquet of roses in which his interview with Joe Biden took place at the White House. The balancing act of his response between disapproving of Bildu’s decision on his candidacies – “legal, but not decent” – and avoiding the problems caused by the pacts with the pro-independence coalition, evidenced the difficulty in reconciling the ethical obligation with political necessity. The PP hammers there refining the tactic: it now makes all the barons of the PSOE, with whom it competes, co-responsible for what its leader does.
step out
The endorsement that EH Bildu has been giving to Sánchez -Otegi strives to repeat that, whatever is in his power, the right will not govern anywhere, a relevant notice for the eventual reissue of the Government of the socialist María Chivite in Navarra- it has gone from rehearsal to strategy; the abertzale leader himself admitted to his own that his legislature plan was ‘prisoners for Budgets’. While the Socialists face the race towards 28-M forced, once again, to get out of their pacts, fueling the accusations against the PP of using violence and refusing to agree, making understanding with the independentistas, the polls paint a face for Otegi and his. The resistance of the PSOE on 28-M will measure to what extent the disgust for those “dangerous friendships” of Sánchez has permeated or not in the electorate that votes for mayors and regional presidents. In the Basque Country and Navarra, the arena moves to the field of post-ETA memory.
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