At the end of 2004, nine months after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won the general elections held three days after the 11-M attacks, the PSOE was advancing steadily in the polls. The withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the beginning of the socialist leader’s mandate with the promotion of equality laws predicted the consolidation of the new government and alarm bells were ringing at the PP headquarters.
The strategy was then defined on Génova Street to try to destabilize the socialist executive, which was going to pivot almost exclusively on the debate on a new Statute of Catalonia, and its promotion from the tripartite. A long, tough campaign, with many fronts and that did erode President Zapatero – who also had to deal with the tensions in the Catalan tripartite –, although he did not manage to get him out of Moncloa.
That destabilizing strategy – which many PP leaders later considered a mistake – is the script to which this formation once again resorts at the threshold of the investiture debate of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and, above all, in view of the possible agreements that Pedro Sánchez may reach with Junts and ERC –amnesty law– to reach Moncloa.
The words of José María Aznar on Tuesday, calling for mobilization and speaking of the “dramatic situation in Spain”, the announcement made by the PP of the call for a great “act” to reject the amnesty return to that first strategy. The current context is different, in 2005 there was still more than a decade left for the process. But there was a collection of signatures, radio spots, a demonstration in Puerta del Sol, the attempt to create an ideological framework that linked the Statute and ETA, the impact of a boycott of Catalan products… And, finally, the appeal in the TC.
Zapatero had arrived at Moncloa when the polls pointed to a majority for Mariano Rajoy – the PP came from an absolute majority. And the polls also predicted Feijóo’s victory over Sánchez on June 23. During the negotiation of the pardons, the PP tried to rescue this tool of tension with Pablo Casado at the helm, although with little success. The Moncloa’s response, calling Aznar a “coup plotter”, indicates that he wants to prevent his foundations from being shaken.
