“They have nothing against me, because I am a clean politician. I’m not perfect, but I’m a clean person.” With this statement, Pedro Sánchez has tried to refute the “campaign of insidiousness” that he has assured that he and his family are suffering from the right-wing and their related media since he arrived at Moncloa five years ago. “Sanchismo is a bubble that they have been inflating with lies, manipulations and evils”, the President of the Government insisted in the long interview that he starred in on Tuesday on Telecinco, in the Ana Rosa Quintana program, which he considered that he may be in their “ideological antipodes”.
Sánchez has listed many of the epithets that he has received from the right, from being obsessed with power and the Falcon to being arrogant, a coup plotter and a philoetarra, a liar and an illegitimate president, or even that his wife belongs to a drug trafficking network in Morocco. He has also criticized the fact that the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, referred to him the day before, in that same television space, as “this character.” “Insulting in the public debate degrades us as a country,” he lamented. And he recalled that Esperanza Aguirre has assured that “Sánchez is a public danger because he adds deaths.”
The head of the Executive has tried to dismantle all this cascade of invective one by one. He has even ironized about the use of the official plane: “For the PP and Vox I would have to hitchhike.” The famous Falcon, he recalled, was bought under the mandate of José María Aznar.
“I have not lied”, Sánchez assured, to defend his position changes on relevant issues, for example to face the political conflict in Catalonia. And he has alleged that lying was what José María Aznar did when he attributed the 11-M attacks to ETA, “knowing that it was not like that”, or when he led Spain to the invasion of Iraq alleging that it possessed weapons of mass destruction, or when the PP wanted to hold the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero responsible for the Gürtel case, which proved its irregular financing.
“I have changed my mind in Catalonia”, Sánchez has once again admitted. “I changed my mind to build coexistence in Catalonia”, he justified, before the granting of pardons to the pro-independence leaders imprisoned by the process. “I made that risky decision to build coexistence,” he insisted. And, in his opinion, his decisions have had a very positive effect. “Today in Catalonia we can breathe coexistence”, he stated.
“It is not true that he governs with Bildu,” Sánchez also replied. And he has warned that the PP, on the other hand, is ruling with the extreme right of Vox, for now, in autonomous communities and city councils. He has thus insisted on differentiating his government, investiture or legislature pacts, as he has done with Unidas Podemos or with the PNV, as he has pointed out, from the “specific parliamentary support” signed with Bildu. That he has justified in order to approve his social or economic policies. “I have sought support even under the stones”, he highlighted, given his need to reach absolute majorities of 176 seats from the 153 deputies of the government coalition. The objective, he has assured, has been to advance rights and social conquests, while the PP is agreeing with Vox on “social setbacks.” And he has criticized Feijóo’s “180 degree change of opinion” in Extremadura, where the PP will govern in coalition with the extreme right. “It is good that they swallow their words to reach agreements,” he warned. And before the elections of 23-J, he has assured that Feijóo “will put Vox in the Government” if he needs it to reach Moncloa.
This, therefore, is the dilemma that Sánchez has raised: “Either a PSOE government or a Feijóo government with Abascal.” “We are going to go for progressive or far-right coalition government formulas.”
And he has refuted that the PP is willing to abstain if he wins the elections, so that he does not have to seek support from ERC or Bildu, despite the fact that Feijóo demands that the most voted list govern, and that the PSOE give him the investiture if he does is. “The PSOE is out to win the elections, with the aspiration of governing with a solid parliamentary majority. And I also know that I am not going to count on the abstention of the PP ”, he assured. As much as Feijóo demands it. Or Felipe Gonzalez.
“I asked in 2019 to govern alone. And I repeated the elections in November. I asked that the most voted list be allowed to govern. And the PP voted against it, systematically”, stressed Sánchez. And he recalled that, on the other hand, the PSOE did abstain from allowing the investiture of Mariano Rajoy in 2016. “Against my judgment, but it did,” he pointed out.
“I am going to win the elections, and I have many arguments, reasons and motives to consolidate a line of economic and social policy that has been good for our country,” Sánchez defended. “With our successes and with our mistakes”, she has assumed. “I ask for re-election to continue advancing four years and not go back 20 years ago as the PP and Vox are proposing,” he claimed.
