The PP spokesman, Borja Sémper, has clarified that Alberto Núñez Feijóo did not intend to justify sexist violence by referring to the “hard divorce” of the Vox candidate for the Valencian Community, Carlos Flores, but rather reproduced the arguments of those who minimized their sentence for psychological violence to his ex-wife.
In an interview with Cadena Ser, the leader of the PP recounted last night that they told Vox: “We cannot sign with someone who has been convicted of verbal violence, twenty years ago, it is true; he is a professor, it is true; he has served a sentence, It’s true; he had a tough divorce and he verbally abused his ex-wife and we said: you see, we can’t sign an agreement with this person.”
Sémper has come out of the way of criticism that Feijóo’s words have aroused, in which the left sees a minimization of male violence and the sentence against Flores in 2002.
In an interview with Televisión Española this Tuesday, this leader explained that with his words Feijóo “gathers up some of the things” that they “said” to the PP “to minimize this fact” and that they did not have an “effect” in his party as shown by the I veto Flores in the Valencian government negotiation.
“It seems extraordinarily serious to us, whether in the context of a divorce or walking through the mountains, that someone harasses, persecutes or threatens a woman, it also seems to us like cowards,” said Sémper, who believes that “whoever does that does not only deserves a criminal sanction” but “does not deserve in any case to have any political representation”.
That is the position of the PP and it is “unchangeable”, he added, after the PP vetoed Flores in the Valencian Community negotiation and Santiago Abascal placed him as the head of the Vox list in Congress for this autonomy. And “in case someone” “misinterprets” Feijóo, Sémper has added, he has specified that “there is no angle to minimize a crime of these characteristics.”
This morning the Vice President of the Government and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, harshly criticized those words with which, in her opinion, Feijóo “has legitimized the physical and intellectual mistreatment of a woman, that violence is exercised on us because someone is in a separation process. This invalidates him to govern this country.”
“Feijóo has legitimized, without shame, that a woman is mistreated because someone is getting a divorce; this is outrageous”, repeated the vice president, who asked for calm around equality policies. “It is not good that we play with feminism, because it belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one.”
Along the same lines, the PSOE spokeswoman, Pilar Alegría, has stated that it is “shameful” that the president of the PP has minimized the conviction for sexist violence of the Vox leader in the Valencian Community. Alegría has said that it is “painful” that Feijóo has said this and is “banishing sexist violence from all agreements” with the far-right party instead of dealing “forcefully” with this scourge.
In an attention to the media this Tuesday, the socialist spokesperson has remarked that it is “serious” to use this issue to “justify the 187 agreements of the PP with Vox”, in 52 municipalities of which the PSOE won.
Along the same lines, the Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, has accused Feijóo of justifying sexist violence. “Spain does not deserve a president who justifies violence against women,” Montero published in a message on her Twitter account.
Also the socialist candidate to occupy a seat in the Congress of Deputies, Adriana Lastra, has indicated that she is “astonished” by Feijóo’s words and has shared a tweet in which the insults that Flores launched at his ex-wife and for the that he was sentenced. “For Feijóo this is having a” hard divorce “”, the former deputy has criticized, the same message that has also been shared by the PSOE spokesperson and Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría and the president of the Senate, Ander Gil.
Likewise, the Minister of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, has asked Feijóo to rectify his words. “It was not a harsh divorce, it was a sentence for psychological abuse of a woman. Sexist violence does not admit euphemisms. Rectify, Mr. Feijóo, or the far-right discourse will absorb you completely,” the minister wrote on Twitter.
For her part, the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, on her Twitter account has indicated that calling violence against women a “hard divorce” is trivializing and normalizing violence against women. “No, feminists have not gone too fast: our rights are urgent. And defending them requires making it clear that the responsibility for machismo lies with the male chauvinists.”
Even the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, has taken to Twitter to refer to the issue. “I know I’m late, but those who call sexist violence” hard divorce “will come later”, he wrote in his first message on the social network.
