Not even in its wildest dreams did the PP expect an outcome like the one experienced yesterday in Congress. The faces of satisfaction among the popular ranks, who have been protesting in the streets against the Amnesty law for months, were representative of what they had just witnessed. It didn’t take them much effort to overturn the procedure that they saw as already approved. To vote against, Junts was already there, which has given them time. At most one more month to continue making frontal opposition against the text and so that the “prevaricating judges” as Miriam Nogueras took pains to point out yesterday, not once or twice, but on a string of occasions, can continue delving into cases that remained, collecting dust in a drawer.
Junts fulfilled the threat made on Monday to vote against the procedure, waiting for a gesture from the socialists and including their amendments. In the previous votes the order had served them and they had ended up getting “compensation” from the socialists. This time the PSOE stood up.
Some will once again describe these script twists in the art of negotiation as a “master move”, but the message it leaves for others – PSOE and ERC – is that Junts is not a trustworthy party and that the change of course towards pragmatism that many had sensed after the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez was a mere mirage. The president of the party, Laura Borras, had already warned a few days ago “we do not want to contribute to governability” and they have done so.
The law may end up being derailed and it will not be because the judges declare it unconstitutional or because the European justice system overturns it, it may fail before reaching the Senate. The image of post-convergents voting against criminal oblivion together with the PP and Vox bench seems like a full-fledged warning.
Junts’ will now is to redirect the negotiations as soon as possible. Return to the path of dialogue. It will not be easy to reestablish the bridges in the new climate of distrust of republican socialists who lived yesterday with stupor. Yesterday Oriol Junqueras wanted to calm things down, but at ERC they cannot hide their disappointment at the outcome. Not even the messages launched from the lectern by deputy Pilar Vallugera in which she advised Junts not to fall into the “judges’ trap” served to change their position.
There are weeks ahead and with a Galician campaign in the middle that reduces incentives for the PSOE to negotiate immediately. The way the political landscape is these days, many things can happen and Junts has given time.
