Three reflections can be made about the amnesty law that the PSOE has registered in Congress and that can be approved in a few weeks. The first is the price that Pedro Sánchez has paid to be sworn in as president with the seven votes of Junts. The second is that Carles Puigdemont and all those involved in the process, from 2012 to today, will be free of the accusations and penalties that the courts have handed down. And the third is that the Socialist Party and the rest of the partners of the future government have assumed the narrative of the independentists who benefited from the amnesty. Pedro Sánchez’s story has bowed to the demands of Esquerra Republicana first and to those of Junts a few days later.
There are many more repercussions of pacts that have been denounced by all associations of judges and prosecutors, by numerous public administration institutions, by professional associations and by academic, business and professional institutions.
The different positions of public or private institutions will not prevent President Pedro Sánchez from being inaugurated tomorrow. He will be a legitimate president by obtaining the majority of votes, as established by the parliamentary regime of the 1978 Constitution. The underlying problem has to do with the value of the given word and with the contradictions in which practically all the Government ministers and the president himself have fallen between what they said three months ago about the amnesty and what they are saying now. The Government gives in to everything the independentists have demanded, while those granted amnesty have not given up anything.
Everything is to achieve the investiture with a heterogeneous majority, but a democratic majority after all, which we are told will promote coexistence and reunion in a land that will flow with milk and honey. But in the agreement between PSOE and Junts it is confirmed that the underlying issue remains unresolved. The future of Catalonia’s definitive fit in Spain does not depend on seven strategic votes at a critical moment. It is much more complex.
There is half of Spain that does not agree with the amnesty, including heavyweights of socialism. And they do not accept Sánchez’s investiture agreed with Puigdemont in Brussels. Núñez Feijóo champions a tough opposition that, for the moment, is manifested with crowds in the Spanish streets and that Abascal complements with noisy rallies on Ferraz Street.
The right to demonstrate is as constitutional as the right to strike. It can be a form of protest against decisions of any of the public powers. But politics is not made in the streets but in the institutions, although when there are hundreds of thousands demonstrating there is a problem that the executive branch cannot ignore.
The Popular Party has to fight the political battle in the institutions. He has control in the Senate, he governs in eleven autonomous communities, he presides over many deputations, the majority of Spanish capitals are right-wing. Sánchez is probably going to be sworn in tomorrow. Opposition to the vicissitudes of the next legislature can be done from the streets, but the most effective way is to manage with intelligence and rigor the power it already has without falling into the temptation of buying Vox’s speech. High beams are advisable on political nights.
