Emiliano García-Page’s long-standing habit of always marking his own profile within the PSOE, to differentiate himself and distance himself from Pedro Sánchez and especially his policy in Catalonia, has met his match this time. The president of Castilla-La Mancha, the only socialist leader who maintains an absolute majority in all of Spain, took advantage of his presence at the Tourism Fair in Madrid this Wednesday to launch a fierce criticism against the amendment to the Amnesty law agreed the day before between the PSOE, Junts and Esquerra. “There is no good terrorism and bad terrorism,” García-Page warned.
But contrary to the rule established for years in the leadership of the PSOE of not responding to their admonitions, so as not to fuel the internal controversy and not serve arguments on a plate for the intensified offensive of the right, this time there has been a response. And forcefully, through the mouth of the PSOE organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán: “All terrorism is bad, García-Page,” he replied.
In the leadership of the PSOE they declare themselves fed up with García-Page’s constant criticism of the party’s official line, revalidated this weekend at the great political convention held in A Coruña to which the leader of the socialists of Castilla-La Mancha Did not assist. It is also customary for García-Page not to attend Pedro Sánchez’s calls, or to the meetings of the federal committee of the PSOE, but on this occasion he excused his presence because he had a trip scheduled to China. “He’s starting to get tired,” they admit to Ferraz.
García-Page did attend the Fitur meeting this Wednesday, an event in which he also took the opportunity to have a long meeting in front of the cameras with three regional presidents of the Popular Party: the Andalusian Juanma Moreno Bonilla, the Valencian Carlos Mazón and the Fernando López Miras from Murcia. And, after inaugurating the Castilla-La Mancha stand at the fair, he denounced that the Catalan independence movement not only seeks amnesty with the law that is being processed in Congress, but also pursues “impunity.” And he has warned that “there is no good terrorism and bad terrorism, terrorism is terrorism, terrorism means having the intention to generate terror.”
But, this time, the organizational secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, has responded forcefully: “The problem raised by others is, what is terrorism? I think the vast majority of us know it and you should know it,” he responded to García Page.
And he has not been the only one in the leadership of the PSOE. The president of Castilla-La Mancha has also denounced that, in his opinion, the PSOE is right now “on the outskirts of the Constitution, about to step on the constitutional border”, in the face of the repeated demands of the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, “very determined to end the credibility of politics in Spain.”
The Minister of Transport and former mayor of Valladolid, Óscar Puente, already reincorporated into the leadership of the PSOE, has also stood up to García-Page’s warnings. “The person who has been on the outskirts of the PSOE has been Page for quite some time, we are at the center of the Constitution,” Puente replied.
These words have in turn bothered García-Page, who has once again claimed his absolute majority in Castilla-La Mancha – the only one that the PSOE maintains at the regional level – in a veiled allusion to the fact that Puente lost the mayor of Valladolid after the elections. municipal elections in May 2023. Although Puente’s list was the most voted list in these elections, the alliance of the PP with the far-right Vox snatched the mayor’s office from him.
“I have spent my entire life winning elections from the PP and the right,” García-Page alleged. “I would care if others did the same: beat the PP. Whoever wins on the right and the extreme right is not in any suburb. “I win the elections, let’s see if I’m going to have to apologize for winning the elections,” the president of Castilla-La Mancha concluded.
