The beating of a Pedro Sánchez doll as the finale of the ultra New Year’s Eve party that on December 31 brought together several hundred people in front of the socialist’s headquarters on Carrer Ferraz in Madrid has marked the first dispute of the year between the PSOE and the PP, with the limits of the protest in the center of the panel. But the mutual accusations of “double standards” regarding similar behavior in previous years make it difficult to define shared rules of the game.
For the PSOE, there is no room for interpretation. As pointed out by its spokesman in Congress, Patxi López, the socialist formation is not only studying the legal ways to pursue what it understands as a “hate crime”, but it demanded the right-wing parties to stop ” feed” these attitudes with their speeches.
Circumscribing what had happened on Sunday around Vox, López made the PP co-responsible, arguing that “if one spends the day saying that Sánchez is a traitor, a dictator, that democracy and the State are being burdened of law, there will be people who will say: then against them”. “To reject is to condemn, not to support these actions. And that’s why we ask the Popular Party to abandon the permanent hyperbole”, he added in statements sent to the press amplified by the group of PSOE ministers.
The PP did not take long to react. After the lukewarmness shown in the first hours of 2024, sources from the national leadership showed their rejection and “condemn” to “everything that does not enter within the limits of respect”. But from Genoa they did not take long to place the ball on the roof of the PSOE demanding an equally forceful rejection of the burning of photos of the King or of dolls and images of the popular leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as those recorded in the Diada . “Our position is the same in all cases; his, no”, added the same sources.
In the meantime, associations such as Revuelta – a foundation related to Vox – are taking advantage of this lack of understanding to incite new protest meetings, such as the one called tomorrow in front of Madrid City Council minutes before the possible reprimand of the spokesperson ultranationalist Javier Ortega Smith for aggressively confronting the councilor of More Madrid Eduardo Rubiño in the last municipal meeting.
The choice of Plaça de Cibeles for this event will also allow the organizers of the ultra New Year’s Eve to aim directly at the mayor of Madrid. The capitostos insulted José Luis Martínez-Almeida and accused him of having “boycotted” Ferraz’s act by ordering the municipal police to prevent the access of a truck with a giant screen and an electric generator on the night of New Year’s Eve.
Municipal sources, however, evaded any responsibility yesterday and, after recalling that the protection of the rights of assembly and demonstration are the responsibility of the National Police, pointed out to La Vanguardia that the installation of the stage, platforms and vehicle of energy support “they were denied due to lack of time to process it”.
