Yesterday, with the more or less direct participation of some of the investiture partners, the open schism in the board of directors of Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), whose The last extraordinary meeting culminated in the dismissal of both its interim president, Elena Sánchez, and the content director of the public entity, José Pablo López.
To understand the origin of the mess, you have to go back several months. In the search for a television format that counteracts the leadership in the so-called prime time of Pablo Motos, whose program El hormiguero (Antena3) includes a talk show that is recurrently critical of the Government chaired by Pedro Sánchez, José Pablo López maneuvered to sign the comedian and presenter David Broncano, currently in charge of a late night at Movistar.
The negotiations to attract the host of a booming format involved figures that, on the grounds that they broke RTVE’s salary balance, were questioned by Elena Sánchez herself, proposed at the time by the Socialist Party. And after the abstention of the director of the entity in several ordinary meetings, the decision was transferred to an extraordinary council scheduled for yesterday for which the alignment of the five councilors appointed in the previous legislature by PSOE (two), Unidas Podemos (two) and PNV (one) was inexcusable to subdue the three officials appointed by the PP and Sánchez herself, reluctant to sign the operation.
At this point, the PSOE contacted Unidas Podemos. The purple party demanded as compensation the inclusion of some of its talk show hosts in the network’s current affairs programs and only guaranteed the favorable vote of one of the councilors it placed on the RTVE board, the Guipuzcoan Roberto Lakidain, arguing that the second, José Manuel Martín Medem is under the umbrella of Sumar as he belongs to the PCE, currently in alliance with those of Yolanda Díaz.
Seeing that, a priori, the accounts worked out, the PSOE accepted, as demonstrated by the fact that the former second vice president of the Government Pablo Iglesias made his debut on Monday as a talk show host on the Mañaneros program.
But what they did not count on in Ferraz was that, when the time of voting came, Medem would align with the director of the entity and the three PP councilors to overthrow the signing of Broncano by five votes to four.
Given the disaster, and by virtue of the sufficient majority, Lakidain himself proposed voting to dismiss Sánchez due to the loss of confidence. Once this second vote was open, the aforementioned Medem again went freely and voted against. The PNV advisor chose to abstain. And the PP, seeing the opportunity to widen the open schism, voted alongside the PSOE and Unidas Podemos.
The PSOE attended the play, filtered live by some of those present, astonished, and was forced to react during the subsequent press conference. And it was the spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, who tried to minimize the damage by emphasizing that what is “truly fundamental and important” is to preserve the independence of the entity as the “quality public service that it is.”
Sumar, for his part, evaded any responsibility and advocated for the “independence” and “plurality” of RTVE for which, sources from the confederal space indicated, they believe it is necessary to “renew” its board of directors to provide it with “the representativeness that corresponds.” to the popular will in this new political cycle.”
The PP took advantage of all this to regret the “instability generated” on Spanish Radio Television. “It is an example of the crisis that exists where there is political interference by the Government in its attempt to control all public media,” said its parliamentary spokesman, Miguel Tellado.
In this open crisis, the PSOE has avoided directly pointing out the leader of Sumar, although, outside of the microphone, there are several voices that, since the commons – a party included in the plurinational group – overturned the budgets of the Generalitat and the from Barcelona, ??reproach that “(Yolanda) Díaz does not control her people.” Meanwhile, from the confederal space the PSOE is reproached for having “abandoned the fight to advance social rights” in terms of housing. That is why Sumar has shown its misgivings with the draft Land Law reactivated by the socialists, understanding that it restricts access to public action, limiting the citizens’ capacity for action.
The word crisis has not come out of the mouths of any of the coalition partners, but yesterday the message that Díaz sent out over the weekend resonated again in both headquarters: “Whoever thinks at this moment that they can do it alone is wrong.”
