Congratulations to ERC and Bildu. Also to Junts, although his contest is obstinate and willfully irrelevant in Congress. Two legislatures giving the ember against the gag law to finally prevent its partial modification by putting the accent, to argue the shipwreck, on something alien to the norm such as the use of rubber bullets by the police in violent demonstrations. That these two parties are the ones that take the tilde of the mess does not pardon the Executive. In the end, the final result is as paradoxical as it is indisputable: the most progressive coalition government in history is already as responsible as Mariano Rajoy for the fact that the muzzle continues indefinitely in the mouths of citizens.
That the PSOE has shown itself to be reluctant to change may have to do with the enthusiasm with which it has been using a law that it formally denies. It is enough to look back at the pandemic years or at what happens with the returns at the border with Morocco – now that the neighbor to the south is a friend – to corroborate it. In some matters, such as citizen security or border policy, life is always better against the right.
The proximity of the beginning of the electoral cycle makes agreements difficult. Mark profile, differentiate yourself, stick your feet in the essences. The bag in which the faithful voter lives must now be closed. This makes it difficult to transfer and abandon the demands of maximums. Here is an explanation of the failure of the reform. But not the only one. It may also be that ERC thought that the time had come to catalanize the state police debate. That would be equivalent to turning the discussion about the operations and means of the National Police and the Civil Guard into a circus, as has been the case with the Mossos d’Esquadra for a long time thanks to the lack of political courage of the majority of the political forces of the Parliament with government responsibilities in recent years. It is true that now in Catalonia the eternal discussion about how bad the Mossos are has entered a valley zone. Only in exchange for turning the Department of the Interior into an extension of the Department of Igualtat i Feminismes. The wild card of the feminization of the body will last Minister Joan Ignasi Elena until an unpleasant police action – it does not matter if it is proportional or not – returns him to the reality of what he has in his hands.
The excesses and abuses of the agents, including those who entered the force thanks to the unreliability of the psychotechnical tests, the errors of the commanders when it comes to anticipating or executing police devices or even -for not leaving aside episodes recent ones such as the Catalonia operation – the purely criminal attitude of some uniformed officers and their political leaders are not issues that can be taken lightly in a democracy that considers itself to be such. There are mechanisms to defend against such abuses and crimes. And it is true that on too many occasions the despicable police corporatism or the joker of State affairs prevent existing resources from being used effectively to thoroughly purge responsibilities. But it is in that direction that the efforts for the full democratization of the security forces should be directed. That and the improvement in the selection of managers based solely on the professionalism of the applicants and not on their more or less explicit collusion with a specific political project.
On the other hand, the consideration that a police force can only be democratically approved when it renounces –or is made to renounce– violent deterrence tools –none of them, from rubber bullets to water tanks with zero risk for the protester – is to confuse speed with bacon. The failure of the modification of the gag law will continue to be a guarantee as long as churras are mixed with merinos. And, let us add, as long as the PSOE maintains at least one foot rooted in the realm of reality.
