On a winter morning as unpleasant as it can be in Madrid, this Saturday some 15,000 people gathered in the Plaza de Cibeles, according to the Government Delegation, under the explicit motto of “There are plenty of reasons. Sánchez, resign!”, in response to the call launched by a hundred entities that oppose the amnesty for those prosecuted as a result of the independence process in Catalonia and that ask for the departure of the head of the Executive, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, from the Moncloa.
The event, in which shouts such as “Sánchez, son of a bitch!” or Puigdemont, to prison”, has been closed by Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who has been received with cheers by the attendees after having escaped alive from the point-blank shot he received on November 9 at the hands of “a hitman sent by a terrorist regime”, as he himself has described it in reference to Iran, the alleged instigator of the assassination attempt.
With the broken voice that characterizes him and the flowery verb with which he illustrates his speeches, Vidal-Quadras has exposed the reasons why Spain, in his opinion, is in a “dark period of its millenary history” and has charged against those who want to “eliminate the nation”, in reference to the pro-independence parties that have supported Sánchez’s investiture and that have negotiated the Amnesty law with the PSOE.
“A nation cannot survive in the hands of those whose purpose is to destroy it,” he exclaimed under the fine rain that was beginning to fall at that moment. “We demand an alternative to the nightmare that inhabits Moncloa. Not an alternative to stop this decline, but a true alternative,” she stated. “Spain will endure. The band of traitors, sectarians and criminals will not prevail,” were his last words, after which the national anthem played.
Although the organizers do not include political parties, much of the limelight has been taken, as usual, by the leaders of the groups that have joined the protest, PP, Ciudadanos and Vox, who have monopolized the spotlight and made statements at the beginning of the rally, much less massive than the one that took place in the same place and for similar reasons just a couple of months ago, when some 170,000 people gathered.
On the part of the PP, with the senior staff of the party meeting in Córdoba to define new strategic horizons, Dolors Montserrat, head of the delegation in Brussels, and the vice-secretaries Ester Muñoz, Juan Bravo and Noelia Núñez, have participated, who have denounced the “transaction “corrupt act of changing votes due to impunity” of which Sánchez is accused. “This government was born corrupt,” said Muñoz, while Montserrat stressed that the PP “is not going to stop” and will be “on all fronts.”
In addition to Montserrat, the PP of Catalonia has also had its general secretary, Santi Rodríguez, who is a member of Congress in the current legislature, while other colleagues such as Llanos de Luna have stayed in Barcelona to attend the demonstration that will take place. place tomorrow Sunday in Plaza Sant Jaume.
On the other hand, the extreme right has had top-level representation, with the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, at the helm, although the general secretary, Ignacio Garriga, has stayed in the Catalan capital to attend the call “No to the amnesty. No to impunity”, which is how the Sunday protest in front of the Generalitat palace has been named.
Abascal, who has made statements at a point other than the one where he has chosen the PP, with whose representatives he has not agreed, has charged against the popular ones, whom he has accused of being ambiguous for being today demonstrating against an amnesty that, in his opinion, It is designed for the family of Jordi Pujol and former president Carles Puigdemont, while next Wednesday they will meet again in the European Parliament with the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, to negotiate the renewal of the CGPJ.
The leader of Vox has urged the PP to stop the processing of the Amnesty law in the Senate, where it has an absolute majority. “There they can do, as José María Aznar told them that they should do where possible, and if not, explain it,” Abascal challenged his former colleagues in the ranks, despite the fact that, constitutionally, the possibility of blocking a law in the Upper House and not returning it to Congress, is not planned.
As for Ciudadanos, it has been represented by MEPs Adrián Vázquez and Jordi Cañas, secretary general and spokesperson of the party, respectively, who try from the European Parliament to keep the pulse of a political space that has disappeared from Congress and maintains only vital signs. in the Parliament of Catalonia, which is why the next European elections in June are practically their last chance for survival.
Vázquez has promised to continue working from Brussels against this “impunity law”, which he has set as “the beginning of the end of the Sánchez Government”, and has predicted that Europe will “derail” it because it represents an “attack” on the State of right. And Cañas added that Ciudadanos will ask the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for protection against what he described as a “corrupt pact” that has placed Spanish judges “at the feet of horses.”
In the soup of letters that make up the numerous convening entities, among which are the student organization S’ha Finish!, Coexistence Cívica Catalana or Cataluña Suma por España, the absence of Societat Civil Catalana (SCC) has drawn attention, which stood out in 2017 for organizing the largest demonstration in history against the independence of Catalonia in Barcelona.
This time, SCC, which defends its transversality in the left-right axis, has not formally joined the demonstration, very hostile to the President of the Government and the PSOE, and is awaiting developments, although its judicial offensive in the Court of Accounts and in the Voloh and Tsunami cases, sources from the entity point out, it does not decline.
One of its founders, José Domingo, who was also one of the first Ciudadanos deputies in the Parliament, has traveled to Madrid on behalf of the Impulso Ciudadano association, and has stood alongside other politicians present, such as the former Madrid president Esperanza Aguirre, the MEP Maite Pagazaurtundua or the former leader of Unión Progreso y Democracia, Rosa Díez.
