In the plenary sessions of the Valencia City Council, it is prohibited to applaud the spokespersons and boo the speeches of political rivals. For this reason, those who have been in Les Corts and the town hall explain that their honorable Members take it more calmly and the atmosphere is not as heated as in the regional Parliament. However, yesterday, in the extraordinary plenary session called by the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, to reject the agreements reached by Pedro Sánchez for his investiture, there were moments of great tension such as the one carried out by the socialist spokesperson, Sandra Gómez, and the Vox councilor José Gosálvez, when the former reported the threats against her two-year-old son.
The tension and tension that Spanish politics is experiencing was transferred this Wednesday to the plenary session of the Valencia City Council, where the fracture that this investiture process has generated between the main Valencian political parties was evident. A scene that will be repeated next week when Les Corts, at the proposal of Vox, also holds a specific plenary session to discuss the consequences of these investiture pacts. A theme that monopolizes the Valencian agenda to the joy of the right and “tiredness” of the left.
Before starting the tough debate, the mayor, María José Catala, highlighted the need to position the City Council “institutionally” against “the breakdown of equality among Spaniards, against the perks to friendly politicians who do not want to serve their sentences and against Spain breaking up and being sold for seven votes.” The leader of the PP pointed out that she was not going to allow “unequal treatment of the residents of Valencia” and wondered how the left-wing deputies who will vote for Pedro Sánchez today will set foot in the Valencian Community.
Already in the plenary session, the spokesperson for Vox, Juanma Bádenas, called on citizens to support the general strike promoted by his party. The leader of the extreme right in the council denounced that the Amnesty law breaks the separation of powers and encouraged those present to “join the clamor in the streets and squares.”
PSPV spokesperson Sandra Gómez spoke precisely about these racy protests, denouncing the threats received against her two-year-old son due to the lack of understanding of the members of the Government team. It was then that Vox councilor José Gosalvez and PSPV councilor Borja Sanjuán (also Gómez herself) engaged in an intelligible and racy debate about which threats were condemned and which were not, which the mayor had trouble containing. No one publicly condemned the threats reported by the socialist spokesperson.
Gómez regretted that Catalá, with this type of calls to “draw attention in Madrid” renounces “being everyone’s mayor” and becomes “an agitator.”
More calm was the turn of Joan Ribó who argued that the parties supporting the investiture achieved 12.6 million votes compared to 11.3 for the opposition and pointed out that in the PP “they are furious for not having achieved more allies than the extreme right”. Ribó, who yesterday said goodbye as spokesperson for Compromís, highlighted that the Amnesty Law “is a constitutional project and a good way to resolve a political problem.”
The debate was closed by the spokesperson of the popular group, Juan Carlos Caballero, who took advantage of the critical voices of former leaders of the PSOE to censure that the pacts reached by the socialist party “directly violate the rule of law and the constitutional framework” and, furthermore, ” “they open the door to a self-determination referendum in Catalonia that breaks the unity of Spain.”
In line with Vox, Caballero, Valencians have “the moral obligation to raise their voices in the streets, and also in the institutions, showing loud and clear our support for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law.” So it was; The votes of the PP and Vox sealed support for that motion that flatly rejected the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
