“They make noise, they insult, to divert attention, because they want to demobilize the progressive electorate,” Pedro Sánchez has warned about the right-wing strategy. The President of the Government, with the rally he held this Saturday in Lugo, steps on the accelerator ahead of the Galician elections on February 18, the first appointment with the polls of the new electoral cycle, with a call for the mobilization of the progressive voter to try to deal a definitive blow, ultimately, to Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who tomorrow will once again encourage new protests by the Popular Party in the streets against the Amnesty law and the agreements with the pro-independence parties. Sánchez has vindicated his management, and the policy, “in the face of the sterile cry” of the right.
“We suffer from a disoriented and lacking opposition,” Sánchez criticized. “And before it there is a government with a clear direction and with temperance as a way of doing politics,” said the leader of the PSOE. “In this legislature I am going to demand temperance as a way of doing politics in the face of insults, disqualifications and noise from the right and the extreme right,” he stressed. “Why are they making so much noise, why are they insulting so much, why are there so many smoke screens?” he asked himself. And it has been answered that the reason is because the PP and Vox “cannot justify why they vote against revaluing pensions or extending the social shield.”
Sánchez has criticized that the excuse given by Feijóo for voting against these latest Government decrees is that he does not like the amnesty for those prosecuted by the process. “But what will the amnesty have to do with revaluing pensions, extending the social shield, protecting families from rising prices or ensuring that young people have free public transport?” He replied.
It is the only mention that the PSOE leader has made to the controversial Amnesty law that Congress will vote next Tuesday. Sánchez, on the other hand, has displayed his economic and social management as his best electoral asset, following the latest data on job creation and the drop in the unemployment rate. “We manage the economy much better than the right, because we put it at the service of the majority,” he defended.
“We don’t do miracles,” Sánchez warned. “Remember how the miracle workers ended up in jail,” he joked about that economic miracle that President José María Aznar boasted about, despite the fact that his economic vice president, Rodrigo Rato, ended up in prison years later for the card case. Black. “We do not work miracles – he has insisted – but we do manage the economy much better than the right, because we put it at the service of the people.”
The leader of the PSOE has called for the mobilization of the progressive voter, to begin with, in Galicia. In this appointment with the polls, he has warned, “everything will depend on those Galicians who do not know very well what to do, who are undecided, they do not know whether to go to vote nor do they know very well who to vote for.” But he has assured that, according to polls, more than 70% of the Galician population demands a change. “If Galicia votes, Galicia changes”, he has encouraged. And, given the fragmentation of the left in these elections, he has pointed out that “there are many ballots for change in Galicia, but only one ballot to govern the change.” That ballot, he has stressed, is that of the PSOE, with José Ramón Gómez Besteiro as a candidate to preside over the Xunta. “If there is a socialist in the Moncloa, and another at the head of the Xunta de Galicia, on February 18, Galicia does not roll, Galicia flies!” he cried, making a play on words with the surname of the president of the Xunta , Alfonso Rueda, of the PP.
The PSOE leadership is convinced that, in the 18-F elections, a left-wing majority could oust Rueda from the presidency of the Xunta, after 14 years of consecutive governments, and with an absolute majority, of the PP in Galicia. If they succeed, they say, Feijóo’s days at the head of the main opposition party will be numbered. “It would be a matter of hours,” they warn, for the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to maneuver to try to assume the leadership of the PP. For all this, and because it is the first appointment with the polls of this new electoral cycle of 2024 – which will continue with the Basque elections, the European elections and, possibly, also the Catalan ones -, Sánchez is going to focus on this Galician campaign.
Good proof of this is that his visit today to Lugo is the third appointment of the President of the Government and leader of the PSOE in Galicia this week, to boost the electoral expectations of the socialist candidate, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro. Last Sunday, Sánchez already starred in the closing of the PSOE political convention held in A Coruña. On Wednesday, he visited the Navantia facilities in Ferrol, where he announced a new contract to build a Navy ship, with a budget of 439 million euros that will guarantee 1,800 direct jobs. And this Saturday, as president, he first visited the Impulso Verde facilities, in Lugo, which is the first public building in Galicia built entirely of Galician wood. And later, as leader of the PSOE, he starred in a rally with Besteiro at the Faculty of Veterinary Auditorium, before 1,200 supporters, according to the organization.
“Resignation is not an option, abstention is resignation and let the PP continue to govern. “If Galicia votes, Galicia changes!” Sánchez concluded at the Lugo rally, encouraging Besteiro and the PSOE to win the elections. This is just the beginning of a new and intense electoral campaign for the President of the Government. Because, as they say in Ferraz, “we have a lot at stake.”
