The policy of “concord” made the amnesty possible. Achieving its main political objective in the seventies: to allow a meeting place between Spains torn apart for centuries and to build democracy by bringing together the heirs of the civil strife. Those children of the victors and the vanquished. But there were long moments of push and pull. Of those that only time ends up proving right and that are to be regretted due to the inefficiency of reason and the great loss of time. Shameful hairs in the cat flap like the forgiveness of the Francoists for their crimes that was never debated. The only argument was over which Democrats deserved amnesty or not. And practically everyone was reached except the brave Democratic Military Union (UMD), soldiers who had been expelled from the army for conspiring to create democracy. Those imprisoned were released, but without re-entry. Going – here yes – from the muses to the theater.
His exclusion from the first amnesty in 1976 had the consequence of keeping this issue open until the 1977 amnesty, when he came across the same problem again, only resolved ten years later. “Today it doesn’t fit, we’ll see later,” they told them. And they had even legalized the PCE. The protagonists of that time accepted Lenin’s category of objective possibility in this and other aspects. Therefore, as we remember many times in this war room, it is convenient not to sacralize so much the transition, exemplary although incomplete, nor the amnesty of 77. The shadow of the UMD will always be there. This is how democracy began. Without paying tribute to the democratic military. To those who tried the most difficult thing: promoting a democratic army and society. A great Carme Chacón did it 33 years later. With recognition from Congress, Military Cross and declaration from the Council of Ministers.
The amnesty, therefore, needs its gestation time to avoid making mistakes (not two months). The legislator must specify its legal regime so that it is constitutional. He must also conceptualize very well what forgetting consists of and its scope, what the events were, when and which subjects it affects. Making it very clear that this is not a question of justice, but of political will. It is Spanish society represented in national sovereignty, which is the Congress of Deputies, which freely decides to open a new period in which the mistakes of the past are not committed again.
Amnesty, more than a legal figure, is also politically the maximum exercise of magnanimity. The one with the greatest political impact. For all this there can be no shadow that hides it. The amnesty should be called amnesty. And it is essential that it guarantees the non-recurrence of the process. From these bases, the amnesty is not only legal, but politically it is a State pact with constitutional fit. This is easier to explain, because the State pacts in Spain include, of course, all nationalists. It is not amnesty for investiture, but amnesty for reunion.
This is the framework and no other: State pact. The amnesty will make Spain a much stronger democracy. It does not humiliate the transition generation, she remembers it; because the strong are stronger when they seek “concord.” “State Pact” and “constitutional fit,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo said last week, recognizing that there is a political problem in Catalonia. Releasing pressure to not be left behind before the new electoral cycle that begins. Nothing to do with the PP of 2017. With those words perhaps there would not have been 155 or DUIs. It was October 27th. Write down that date again. The amnesty needs “pontiffs”, true “bridge builders” in the best literal sense of the word, and there are plenty of those who blow them up. The PP also needs bridges to be built.
Today, a long weekend in Catalonia like every September 11, marks 50 years since the farewell of Salvador Allende’s presidential political poetry, with which he opened the great avenues. Politics are symbols that, like history, do not repeat themselves but rhyme. Symbols such as when just 15 days before the approval of the 1977 amnesty, a royal decree law gave the green light to the provisional reestablishment of the Generalitat of Catalonia. Yes, that’s how it was, the Government came first, figuratively speaking. It was not amnesty for “investiture.”
A trompe l’oeil is a “trap before the eye”, an optical illusion. In his search for support for the investiture (“I am only four votes away”), Feijóo is clearing the way for Pedro Sánchez. He cannot be president because Sánchez would have to support him, whom he wanted to repeal. But the “trompe l’oeil” also serves daily to show that there is a territorial problem in Spain, called plurinationality, that must be faced (even the PP ends up talking about it). Then the PSOE is the only one that can articulate any agreement, because it can talk to everyone except Vox. And we return to the mandate of 23-J.
The political equation of Junts per Catalunya or elections is false. If the vote is taken again on January 14, 2024, on the 15th – do not doubt it – there will be no amnesty. Clarity on this point can help these weeks. The amnesty slot is today, here and now. The new elections would have two direct effects: 1) either a PP Vox government or 2) a grand coalition or grand cohabitation executive. The arithmetic is what it is. And no one should be fooled: repeat elections will make amnesty impossible and weaken the plurinational majority.
