If the general elections on July 23 are understood as a plebiscite between the left, with the PSOE at the fore, and the right, led by the PP, a tough campaign is to be expected, but with the first pre-election video released by the socialists we can expect the campaign to be dog-faced. The PSOE announcement takes advantage of a lapse by the PP campaign spokesman, Borja Sémper, to accuse his rival of wanting to “repeal ‘Sanchismo’ so that lies can operate again in politics” and refers to “the lies” that the popular have committed throughout their years in the Government, in episodes such as the Prestige, 11-M, the Yak-42, the Iraq war and various cases of corruption that have affected the PP.
In the video, the Socialists crudely point out that “the lie” is “what the PP wants for Spain”, and to justify their maxim they recall the management of the different PP governments in dramatic matters of recent history, such as the attacks terrorist attacks of 2004 or the unfortunate Yak-42 accidents and the sinking of the Prestige oil tanker, where the Government of José MarÃa Aznar was negligent.
The video shows a succession of images that recall these events. To begin with, they reproduce the famous statement made by Mariano Rajoy in 2002, then government spokesman, explaining to the media at a press conference the existence of a small trail of crude oil escaping from the wreckage of the oil tanker: “Some small threads come out with the appearance of plasticine…”, which contrasts with images of the disaster in the sea off the Galician coast, from where crude oil was scooped out.
Immediately afterwards, the video shows the former Minister of the Interior with Aznar Ãngel Acebes at a press conference on the occasion of the 11-M attacks, giving rise to the authorship of ETA: “ETA has achieved its objective”, he said then, after which The PSOE video shows the demonstrations against the Government.
Next, the PSOE video shows images of several of the popular leaders affected at some point by corruption cases, such as former treasurer Luis Bárcenas, MarÃa Dolores de Cospedal, Esperanza Aguirre, Federico Trillo and Francisco Camps. Then there are images of Trillo visiting the site of the Yak-42 tragedy, the military plane that crashed in 2003 in which 62 Spanish soldiers died when they were returning home after a four-month peace mission in Afghanistan.
From the air tragedy, the video goes on to show images of former President Aznar with former US President George Bush, thus recalling the war in Iraq that was based on the lie that Saddam Hussein’s country had weapons of mass destruction. The last image of the video is for the current president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo before repeating the slip of Sémper: “This is what we want for Spain and this is the political project that we want to shape”, in reference to “the lie “.
