“Today’s Spain”, Pedro Sánchez celebrated yesterday, is “an open, modern, tolerant country”. “A country plural in ideologies and cultures, and diverse in languages, plural in the streets and in Parliament”, defended the president of the acting Spanish Government, who assumed the endorsement of the ballot boxes in July to block the passage to the right and face, after the expected failure of the investiture of the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, his own re-election.
Sánchez thus drew Spain as “a full democracy, with solid institutions, which translate into government the popular will expressed by all Spaniards every time there are free and equal elections”. It was his response to the bitter protest against his investiture and against a future amnesty for those accused of the process, which the PP celebrated the day before in Madrid. The leader of the PSOE defended “a democracy in which the word reason deprives insult of meaning”.
The spokeswoman for the acting Executive, Isabel Rodríguez, spoke to the same effect after the meeting of the Council of Ministers. “We listened to the social majority of Spain, very resolutely, at the polls on July 23”, he replied to relativize the effects of the PP street protest. This general election not only added a million more votes for Sánchez compared to 2019, but also established a new parliamentary arithmetic that this week will, as planned, reject Feijóo’s investiture.
Rodríguez conveyed “the respect” of the Spanish Government for the “demonstrations, mobilizations or party acts” of the PP, as he did after the pro-independence demonstration of the Day. But the minister spokeswoman insisted that now “the relevant thing” is the investiture that Feijóo will face. In a plenary session of Congress, he warned, “where the important figure is not 30,000, 40,000 or 60,000”, with reference to the supporters who attended the PP protest, “but to have been able to forge a parliamentary majority that gives viability to that investiture, that is to say, more than 175 seats”. “And nowadays, Feijóo only has 172”, recalled Rodríguez.
And he emphasized that the leader of the PP “is where he started”, without managing to add more support to his investiture than he already had after the scrutiny of the ballot boxes and the King’s order.
The spokeswoman for the Central Executive urged that “Spain stop wasting time” to have “a fully functional Government as soon as possible”. And he criticized that Feijóo “pretends to talk about other matters”, with reference to the amnesty. Although he assured that if the leader of the PP does not talk about his country project or the majority he needs for the investiture, it is because he has neither of the two. “After this month, Feijóo would like to close his eyes and let September 30 be the day,” he quipped. But first “he must certify, to see if he is aware once and for all, that he does not have a sufficient majority to govern this country”.
“This country expressed itself at the polls, two months ago now, and with absolute clarity it sent the message that Spain did not want an alliance of the PP with Vox,” the minister spokeswoman stressed. After the failure of his investiture Rodríguez trusted that the leader of the PP “is aware that this is what happened on July 23”.
When asked if the Spanish Government continues to defend that Carles Puigdemont must be held accountable before Spanish justice, the minister spokeswoman sent the public “a message of reassurance and full confidence in democratic institutions”. “The discourse of fear and hatred is reborn again, for many years we have heard that the wolf is coming and that Spain is falling apart”, he lamented. Messages, he warned, that are only repeated with the PP in opposition.
“The reality is that with progressive governments there is more tranquility, more cohesion and more unity in Spain”, he concluded.
