Seven demonstrations in two years and Pedro Sánchez is still in Moncloa. It is the baggage of the strategy of harassment and demolition launched by the PP after the fiasco of the failed investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. In each of his interventions, the opposition leader draws a country that borders on the post-apocalyptic, where nothing works and people suffer hunger and hardship. All, under a corrupt Government and in a parliamentary minority. Despite the story, he does not dare to make a motion of censure and settles for one more protest in his competition with Vox.
The struggle of the right to capitalize on the street mobilizations against the Government began together with the legislature. Even before his own parliamentary failure. Feijóo called a rally prior to his inauguration in which he announced to his people that he was going to lose the Congressional vote. Already then, the bulk of the interventions focused on attacking Sánchez and the amnesty law that he was going to agree with Junts to gain their support. Isabel Díaz Ayuso said that “in no way” were they going to allow the approval of a law that has been in force for years and has led to the amnesty of dozens of people, including protesters, 1-O instigators and police officers who were going to be tried for their actions on that day in 2017.
Then other concentrations arrived. In Plaza de España, in the Puerta de Alcalá, some promoted by the PP, and others by supposed social movements actually controlled by the right.
Sunday’s will be in Madrid’s Templo de Debod, where the PP already gathered a year ago, in that “national November” promoted by the extreme right to try to put an end to the coalition government and which involved many days of violent disturbances at the PSOE headquarters, on Ferraz street. Already then it was noted that this location is located a few hundred meters from the PSOE headquarters. And it is where the PP will return for its seventh concentration.
A protest that could take place in the rain and with low temperatures, and for which the national leadership has requested the help of its regional barons. Regional PP sources have confirmed to elDiario.es that buses will be chartered for whoever wants to sign up.
The protest will be “without acronyms,” as Feijóo promised on Thursday when he announced it. An “open” concentration, but in which leaders or people directly related to the PP will participate. José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy have confirmed their presence.
The competition with Vox has continued these two years. Those from Santiago Abascal have called their own protests, and have also supported the supposedly non-partisan ones. But the main support of the PP has reiterated a growing rejection of Feijóo’s strategy.
Tellado “invites Vox voters”
In the last year, polls have pointed to stagnation of the PP and a rise of Vox. The first real test will be on December 21 in Extremadura. According to the CIS, María Guardiola will repeat the 2023 result, while Vox will double its support. The confrontation between both parties, forced to understand each other to gain power, escalated this Friday. The parliamentary spokesperson for Vox, Pepa Millán, regretted that the PP “calls demonstrations on Sundays, but during the week it sits down with the PSOE to agree and chat as if nothing were happening here.”
“We are not going to participate in that joke,” he said, to remember that next week Feijóo will participate in a joint event with the president of Castilla-La Mancha, the socialist Emiliano García. “What are we playing?” the spokesperson asked precisely from Cáceres.
The response came from Burgos, where the PP meets this weekend with the mayors of the main cities it governs. The general secretary, Miguel Tellado, attacked “the Vox leaders” whom he asked “not to make the wrong rival.”
“From the PP we dedicate all our time and effort to opposing Pedro Sánchez and his government of crime,” he said. “Sunday’s is a concentration of democrats who want to protect Spain’s democracy,” he added. “And if the Vox leaders are wrong, we tell the Vox voters that they are invited,” he concluded. The appeal to the Vox voter is not new: in the PP they are not capable of controlling the loss of votes that all surveys have detected for a year, and whose destiny is precisely Abascal’s party.
Vox’s response? Call through your youth organization another rally on the same day, an hour later, in front of the PSOE headquarters.
The PP asks for help from Catalan businessmen with Junts
Vox accuses the PP of collusion with the PSOE and the Government, and gives as an example Feijóo’s refusal to present a motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez. Abascal has already failed twice in his, for which he did not obtain a single outside support. And he demands the leader of the PP to follow in his footsteps.
But Feijóo does not want to add to a second parliamentary fiasco. The failed investiture of 2023 still weighs on him. His first major political failure came late and when he least expected it. The metamorphosis of the PP leader since his arrival in Madrid has not helped him achieve power, at least for now, and he will only launch when he has the necessary votes tied up.
The leader of the PP already tried to attract Junts and the PNV in the summer of 2023. As it was later learned, Feijóo studied amnesty for Carles Puigdemont, but ruled it out and saw pardons as an alternative to convince him. The head of Junts said ‘no’. He offered the Basque nationalists a ministry, as revealed by the current leader of the EBB, Aitor Esteban, who in an interview with elDiario.es pointed out that “with Vox involved we were not even going to enter into negotiations.”
Then he tried again other times. Sometimes with flowers. Almost always with sticks. The last time, last May. Feijóo received the ‘noes’ from Junts and ERC, whom he questioned after the entry into prison of the former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE Santos Cerdán.
Cerdán is already on the street, and his place in Soto del Real has been occupied by José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García. In the PP they maintain that the circle is increasingly closed around Sánchez, and they do not rule out that he himself will also end up being investigated in one of the many judicial proceedings opened against the socialist leader’s environment and party.
This Thursday, after Ábalos was imprisoned, Feijóo appeared before the media. Asked about the motion of censure, he said: “When I have to say something, don’t worry, I will tell you. This is my position today.”
A somewhat ambiguous answer even for Feijóo. Very adjusted to the present. The two phrases could have gone unnoticed if the next day, in Barcelona and before the leadership of the Catalan employers’ association, the leader of the PP had not directly asked them for their help to assemble a majority that would allow him to oust Sánchez.
At an event held by Foment, the employers’ association led by former CiU deputy Josep Sánchez Llibre, Feijóo demanded the involvement of Catalan businessmen to oust Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa. “I am convinced that in this room there are many people who have voted for Junts,” he said. “I don’t know if there are many or few who voted Esquerra,” he added. “To all these people, that is, to you, I want to speak very clearly. I do not lack the desire to present a motion of censure. I lack votes to present a motion of censure that has a single commitment, to call general elections and that all the citizens of Spain can decide which Government they want at the polls,” he stated.
And he settled: “What I lack are votes from yours, in quotes, but I don’t have them.” 24 hours later, after the public slamming of the Junts door, he said that he wanted the Spaniards to elect him “at the polls.” Until that comes, Feijóo will have to settle for calling insipid protest rallies.
Source: www.eldiario.es
