The acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, does not want to talk about amnesty, he does not even mention it, but that does not mean that in response to whether he is willing to negotiate it with the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, he does not support that possibility. “The political crisis never had to lead to judicialization,” he said so that “what we have done since then is try to return to politics what never had to leave politics.” And although the president is scrupulous about forms and insists that it is time for Feijóo’s investiture, he maintains that when it is his turn, if the leader of the PP fails, “I will be consistent with the policy that I have made in Catalonia, and I am saying a lot.”
At a press conference from New York, where Sánchez is participating in the UN General Assembly these days, the acting president paid for the negotiation with the pro-independence parties, and therefore for an amnesty, as these parties demand in exchange for re-election. . And he attacked the PP and its leader for his efforts to present himself as a candidate for the investiture, an attitude that in his opinion is undermining the credibility of the popular leader among his own ranks. This is how Sánchez understands the demand of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to call general elections. “They don’t even trust their own candidate; Not even the PP leaders themselves take Feijóo’s investiture seriously,” she commented sarcastically.
For Sánchez, the leader of the PP “urged the head of state to be a candidate, by land, sea and air. The weeks go by and the PP continues where it started, in isolation,” he recriminated. For his part, the president of the Government tries to do an “exercise of institutional, democratic respect” in the face of the decision of the head of state, avoiding openly expressing opinions on the demands of the Catalan independentists. But “when I say that I am going to be consistent with the policy that I have carried out in Catalonia, I am saying a lot.” , he assured, because “the data is there, the facts. Catalonia is much better than in 2017,” he remarked.
Until Feijóo fails in his investiture and he is proposed as a candidate by the King, Sánchez will not speak about the amnesty. Then he will do it “with complete frankness,” he promised, but from New York he has limited himself to pointing out that his proposal “will be consistent with what we have done” in Catalonia, in contrast to the “apocalyptic prophecies” sold by the right and certain media. conservative media outlets, he accused. “If Spain sinks, it breaks, and nothing is accomplished,” he concluded.
His plan, therefore, is to continue with the “path of reunion” that “has led us to a situation of normalization and stabilization,” as he said, which was endorsed by Catalan society at the polls and which has allowed “visible results.” ” in the face of a “society traumatized by a tear the likes of which had not been seen in 40 years” as a consequence of the ‘procés’.
If he is chosen as a candidate for the investiture, the general secretary of the PSOE intends to dedicate himself “body and soul to making a real investiture.” His objective for the next government will be “progress and coexistence,” he established, with a method, “dialogue, with social agents for progress and with territorial leaders for coexistence, and the framework is the Constitution,” he highlighted. .
For the president, this agenda aims to de-judicialize “a conflict with political roots.” “A political crisis that never had to lead to judicialization,” and with which Sánchez, he explained, did not agree from the beginning. In fact, he recalled that when Mariano Rajoy and the attorney general at the time, José Manuel Maza, opened the door to all judicial cases for the process, he expressed his discomfort to the then president because he was not informed of such an initiative, and because “we had transferred a conflict with political roots to judicial means.” Since then, “what we have done is try to return to politics what never had to leave politics,” he remarked.
And although the debate in recent days has revolved around unilateralism and the declared intention of the pro-independence parties not to renounce it, the president used the polls to settle the discussion: “How many people in Catalonia support unilaterality? The Catalan CEO says so, between 10 and 11%. There are 90% who want agreement, dialogue, coexistence and harmony. We have to look at that 90%,” he resolved.
Although Sánchez paid the amnesty as a pledge for his investiture, he denied that it had already been agreed upon, as the ERC leader has pointed out in recent hours: “The conversations may be discordant, but the agreements are transparent,” a phrase in line with what indicated by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, appealing to the literal nature of the agreement for the configuration of Congress, which indicates the will to face the end of the “repression” by “all legal and necessary means.”
