The affirmative vote of Junts for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez was essential until today, but a movement by the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, at the time secretary general of the Canary Coalition, already noted last Monday by the deputy of this formation Cristina Valido, can make the acting president of the Government and candidate of the PSOE only the abstention of Carles Puigdemont’s supporters worth it.
Clavijo, whose party gave its votes to Alberto Núñez Feijóo last week in the two investiture votes that were unsuccessful for the popular leader and governs the Canary Islands archipelago with the support of the PP, has opened up this Thursday to his party supporting not only the investiture of Sánchez but the governability of a coalition executive to turn Junts into “a secondary actor”, all of this despite his party’s opposition to the amnesty demanded by the independentists and which he has described as a “decoy”.
“Mr. Puigdemont does not have to be the director of contemporary Spain and the Canary Coalition is in a position to make him a secondary actor; the affirmative vote of Junts would cease to be relevant,” Clavijo stated at an informative breakfast organized by Europa Press.
In his opinion, “if it is true that Junts has the key to the investiture, it is no less true that CC has the key to the governability of this country.” “Spain is not condemned to depend on the Junts vote,” he added.
Clavijo, who added a note of humor to his speech when he differentiated between a key and a latch – “the key is inserted into a lock to open or close it and the latch is exactly the same, only smaller and we are smaller”, has said -, he has insisted that no one from the PSOE has contacted them to request their support but he has pointed out that if this were the case, their position would be “exactly the same as it has always been, that of a nationalist, constitutional party, that does not believe in the repetition of elections, who does not believe in investiture, we believe in legislature”.
The Canary Islands president wanted to differentiate between investiture and governance. “The important thing is not to get the government, which is a means to solve the problems of the Spanish people”, so “we are not in tactical movements of investiture yes or investiture no”, warned Clavijo, who insisted that “if “A government is configured, it has to be for something, with a government program, and with certainty that the citizens’ problems will be resolved and the Constitution will be respected.”
Regarding the amnesty for the causes of the process that the independentists demand to support Sánchez and that some parties already take for granted, the Canarian leader has warned that they are not going to fall “into the lure of amnesty yes or amnesty no”, although he has made it clear that CC “is not in favor of amnesty.”
However, the leader of CC has shown himself to be “absolutely dissatisfied” with the current Government of Spain and has recalled that the Canary Islands have “a serious problem with immigration” and “a serious problem of non-compliance with signed agreements” with the Executive. And the uptick in the arrival of immigrants to the archipelago – and the trail of victims and missing persons on these journeys – is once again the workhorse and the main demand of the Canarian nationalist formation.
After the electoral result of 23-J, the affirmative vote of CC for Sánchez’s investiture would not make it necessary for the affirmative vote of Puigdemont’s supporters, although the acting president would need their abstention, which would also have to be negotiated. Thus Sánchez could add up to 172 affirmative votes (121 from the PSOE, 31 from Sumar, 7 from Esquerra, 6 from EH Bildu, 5 from the PNV, the BNG and the CC), compared to the 171 that would be added PP, Vox and UPN. In this way, the socialist candidate could be invested in a second vote (more yeses than noes) if the seven Junts deputies abstain. And this would not only apply to the investiture but also to approve laws including the general budgets of the State.
