When José María Aznar uttered his war cry, “¡váyase, señor González!”, everyone understood him. I wanted to say: you go, I’m coming. And so it was. When Alberto Núñez Feijóo began to announce, weeks ago, that he wanted to “repeal Sanchismo” he did not express himself so directly or precisely. Because people (and what they represent) cannot be repealed. If they hold public office, they can be defeated at the polls and replaced democratically. If they commit a crime, they can be prosecuted and dismissed. If the desire to lose sight of them is great and the democratic scruples are few, they can be overthrown as in a banana republic. But, strictly speaking, they are not repealed. What is repealed are the laws, which comes to be similar to abolishing or revoking or abrogating them.
Wanting to repeal Sanchism sounds like wanting to give the president the treatment reserved for the laws. Pedro Sánchez has skills and has proven resistance to political attacks, whether they come from friends or enemies, which there have been all of them. But that doesn’t make it a walking legal norm. The survival of Sánchez at the head of the Government depends only on the voters. If in five weeks the circumstances are right for Feijóo to succeed him, that would also be due to the electorate. Not to the fact that Feijóo has made a lot of noise by proclaiming that it is very urgent, in his opinion, to repeal Sanchism. Although the noise helps.
Another thing would be for the aspiring conservative to talk about repealing Sanchism, referring to liquidating certain laws that have been approved by his Executive. Some already had lead in their wings, such as the Democratic Memory law or the trans law, according to Feijóo himself. Others – Education, Euthanasia…– could be tweaked, without being revoked in their entirety. And many more are in the target of Vox, a party that is emerging as essential for the PP to gain power in communities and town councils, given that the conservative results of 28-M give a certain margin to the PP, and not by more.
In fact, Vox abhors all socialist laws, including Animal Welfare. Its leader has said that he would repeal them without exception. He only values ??those who support his mono-color, mono-national, mono-ethnic project. And, therefore, it goes against any norm that more or less favors diversity, feminism, immigration, etc. In Vox, like other political forces, of a very different style, the spirit of consensus of the 1978 Constitution makes it sick.
At the moment it is not known precisely which laws a PP government endorsed by Vox would repeal. Although we should know as soon as possible. Because among the legal measures approved by the Executive chaired by Sánchez there are some that enjoy wide support, such as a minimum wage that was 735 euros and is now 1,080, or the increase in pensions or the law of Housing that limits the price of rent.
Apart from the classic announcement of lower taxes, the two right-wing formations, PP and Vox, seem to want to attract voters on 23-J by prioritizing promises of repealing socialist norms before their own proposals. PP and Vox are like that. But, in a democracy, the trend is for parties to try to seduce voters with offers of welfare or economic advances, convinced that an inclusive society gains in cohesion and collective drive. Instead, the PP and to a large extent Vox seem to be telling the voter now: vote for me and I’ll take this and that away from you. They remind me of that mother who called her son, when he was painting dolls on the walls, in the following way: “Child! Come here, I’ll cut off your hands!” And the boy wasn’t there.
This case is not only Spanish. In the EU, founded on solidarity values ??and freedoms, a reactionary movement is advancing that favors uniformity, cuts in rights and discrimination, shunning those with different origins or diverse ideas or precarious economies, and making the it threatens humanity as a whole with denialist policies of the climate crisis… Thus politics is simplified: it no longer seems obliged to manage complexity without leaving anyone behind. This is what Vox is proposing, loud and clear. So if, after 23-J, a PP conditioned by Vox gets to command, ignorance cannot be claimed.
