After learning that, for the moment, only a face-to-face between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo and a seven-person debate is planned ahead of the general elections on July 23, the two formations that aspire to third place, Sumar and Vox They have regretted that there is not a four-person debate before the elections, understanding that these debates do not respond to reality or to the electoral offer. Meanwhile, RTVE has defended “its neutrality and independence” in the face of the PP statement in which it criticized the public entity for its attempt to organize another face-to-face one.
Atresmedia will organize a debate between the president and the leader of the opposition on Monday, July 10, although the group has proposed another seven with the PSOE, the PP, Sumar, Vox, ERC, PNV and Bildu that would take place before, on Wednesday July 5th. In this regard, Sumar’s campaign spokesman, Ernest Urtasun, warned in an interview on Onda Cero that “it would be incomprehensible” for a face-to-face meeting to take place and there not be a four-person debate before the general elections, and he said that in his Sánchez does not represent him in his duel with Feijóo, although he has admitted that he is closer to the Prime Minister.
Sumar does not think a face-to-face is bad, but he sees it as insufficient, understanding that it does not reflect the “plurality” of the Spanish party system, which “is no longer a pure bipartisanship” as in the United States, explained Urtasun, for whom Yolanda Díaz’s presence in the debates guarantees that there will be talk about the reduction of the working day or the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage, which have her seal and of which “nobody” except her is going to speak: “For those things we also want to be, in that Pedro Sánchez is not going to represent us”.
He has recalled, therefore, that other media have offered debates to four and has trusted that the PP ends up accepting, insisting that in the past general ones there were with that format. “It would be incomprehensible if it were not done,” he said.
Along the same lines, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, interviewed on TVE, regretted that the media have raised “purely bipartisan” debates that, in his opinion, “do not respond to the reality of Spanish society.” Along these lines, he has complained that “it seems” that the “only priority” is that Vox “is not in those main debates. However, he has underlined Vox’s intention to attend as many debates as are invited. “We have accepted all those debates and we will be there,” stressed the leader of Vox.
In line with the controversy over the debates, RTVE has defended “its neutrality and independence” in the face of the statement from the PP’s Deputy Secretary for Institutional Action, Esteban González Pons, in which he criticized the public entity in the face of the chain’s attempt to organize another face to face between Sánchez and Feijóo apart from Atresmedia.
The PP declined yesterday to attend a meeting on RTVE to address the details of the electoral debates, alleging that it will not obey “a written order” from the corporation and stressing that face-to-face negotiations between candidates have been carried out ” between the parties” in “all previous campaigns”. González Pons assured that he had sent an email to the president of Ente RTVE, Elena Sánchez, in which he stressed that his party summoned the PSOE to a meeting last Monday and did not attend , for which he accused the Socialists of breaking the negotiation.
RTVE replied this Wednesday in a statement that Elena Sánchez “has not received any letters from the political formations” and that RTVE “has contacted all the parties to find out their availability to hold debates in their different formats.” He added that he “respects the electoral strategies of the political parties” and defended that the Entity “is not only neutral, but essentially plural and, above all, professionally independent, and for these purposes, without any reproach from the agencies in charge of ensuring cleanliness of the electoral processes”. RTVE also indicated that “it maintains its total willingness to organize the debates offered to the political formations on May 31 and communicated to the Central Electoral Board on June 27.”
