The announced defeat of the motion of no confidence presented by Vox, which will be debated in Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, does not discourage the “independent” candidate chosen by Santiago Abascal, Ramón Tamames, a former communist leader who will fly the flag for 46 years of the PCE in the celebration for its legalization. Tamames himself acknowledges that the end of the motion is written, although with a flowery verb that is no longer carried in the chamber, he tries to be optimistic: “The improbability is not absolute, since I have 52 votes”, those of Vox. And he finds elements for hope “if the vote were secret, I would have more”, he is convinced.
For this reason, the candidate for the presidency of the Government, who has already assumed that he will not be, believes that “helping to clarify” the situation is more important than getting to occupy La Moncloa. In any case, and despite the announced defeat, Ramon Tamames feels “at ease” being the protagonist of the motion, along with Santiago Abascal, with whom he will share the rostrum on Tuesday, the president of the PP to defend the need for the motion, and the candidate to present his program, which will not really be a speech to present a program, but rather a reflection on the situation in Spain.
Speeches very similar, then, to those of politicians, because Tamames himself acknowledged that “there are coincidences” in the approaches, despite Abascal puffing up the choice of his candidate, because he is not from Vox: “”I feel comfortable in this motion of no confidence, because we agree on the essentials”, assured the veteran politician of the transition: “the defense of the unity of Spain, the defense of the Parliamentary Monarchy, “without a King everything would be much more difficult”, and in the flag, “which is not Franco’s but Carlos III’s”.
And also coincidence that the motion is essential despite the fact that the commitment to call general elections on May 28, instead of in December, when Pedro Sánchez plans, would mean calling the polls only with a difference of 6 months. Enough for Tamames, who remembered the Latin phrase “Tempus fugit”, or the English saying “Time is gold”. Two sentences to underline the same conviction, that “we cannot allow what happens in Catalonia with the Spanish language”, that “we are going to continue to see economic lack of solidarity” in the economic and fiscal system of the Basque Country, that “now they want to stay with the single Social Security fund” and a treaty is going to be signed on Gibraltar, which is humiliating for Spain”.
Ramón Tamames also feels comfortable, because he considers that Vox is one of the three constitutionalist parties on the Spanish political spectrum, along with the PSOE and the PP, something that Abascal’s party has not shared on many occasions, since it places the Socialists outside the Constitution. He does not even go as far as Vox when it comes to qualifying the Government as the worst in history. For the candidate for the presidency of the Government, “I am not sure that it is the worst government of the last 80 years, but one of the worst it is”.
Discrepancies that Tamames himself attributes, citing Ortega y Gasett, to the fact that politics is exaggeration and dialectic goes beyond the scope of the issues. The fact that a draft of his speech on Tuesday has been leaked does not worry the former communist leader, who assures that what has been published is “a backward and primary version”, not an “updated version”, which will end in these days, with a development of the issues that he wants to address, and that are going through those problems that in the opinion of Tamames and Vox Spain has because of the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
Whoever votes for him is no longer up to him, considers Tamames, who has no intention of calling Alberto Núñez Feijóo to demand his vote: “We are already in discount time and there is no room for that call”, although he hopes that he and his deputies “reflect after listening to the speech”.
Ramón Tamames returned yesterday to the Congress of Deputies, to which he belonged as a deputy for 7 years, from 1977, with the first democratic Cortes, until he left his seat outside the PCE. Leaning on his cane, and surrounded by the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and the parliamentary spokesman, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, he was interested in the name of the room, located in Extension III of the Congress, which he did not know . Clara Campoamor, explained the usher who accompanied him, and showed her assent to the name.
Already at the press conference, which he shared with Abascal, he began with a phrase to which Vox is not given “good morning to all”. He recalled that “nothing about the Constitution is alien to me”, since he contributed to its elaboration, something that Vox surely does not share, which wants to change Title VIII, and assured that “this return home fills me with special flavor”. A return to Congress that he took advantage of to visit the president, Meritxell Batet, after the press conference, with whom he has already spoken, because she called him three days ago to discuss the motion of no confidence.
A very lucid Ramón Tamames appeared before the journalists despite his age, 89 years old, moderate in his words, declaring himself a supporter of the consensus of the 70s, which he currently sees as impossible, and 100 percent constitutionalists, not only of the Constitution of 1978, but that of 1812. Temporizador, also with the points that the press has highlighted as disagreeing between him and Vox, such as climate change, since he considers that many discrepancies are dialectical, because he has read Vox documents concerned about climate change.
A Tamames who was even willing to continue answering questions from the attending journalists when those responsible for Vox ended the press conference, and in the face of protests from some journalists who had not been given the floor. A very different position from that of Abascal who devoted a good part of his speech to criticizing the media for his sectarianism, if not for lying or inventing discrepancies.
