Spanish government President Pedro Sánchez responded to statements by PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the NATO summit in Vilnius on Wednesday, urging postal workers to “work independently of their bosses” to the utmost ‘ to distribute the votes, assuring them that if they don’t get the exact pay for overtime now, he promises to promote it in the first Council of Ministers, which he would preside over if he could form a government. The socialist leader has criticized an opposition stance that he says was “based on lies and manipulation, which we see in statements designed to undermine people’s trust in their institutions and in Spanish democracy and in wickedness”. .
The PSOE believes that Feijóo is suggesting that those in charge of Correos, a public company that he himself ran as a PP politician between 2000 and 2003, are deliberately trying to make postal voting more difficult in order to artificially increase turnout in the 23-J to reduce. An accusation that this party finds unacceptable and which offers no objective support whatsoever. Postal voting was already a very hot topic in the previous election campaign when there was a serious problem in Melilla and some minor problems in small communities. At the end of the election campaign for these elections, the municipal and regional elections, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the President of Madrid, spoke of the “pucherazo”. This environment, which has prevailed over the last week, has done great damage to the PSOE, which fears that its vision will again be planted with completely unfounded shadows of suspicion.
Sánchez witnessed the entire post-debate and discussions about his intervention at Monday’s meeting with Núñez Feijóo from Vilnius, away from La Moncloa and away from some Socalistas’ self-critical reflections on the president’s role. Sánchez assured that during his presence he was not able to follow “the reactions and the assemblies” well, but confirmed his position at this meeting. The President was asked after the televised debate with Feijóo if a change in his campaign strategy was being considered and he replied, defending what he had done in the debate: “I consider myself a principled politician with strong convictions. I rebel when I hear a lot of lies told the way they were told. I also rebel when I hear whitewashing of what I consider to be a macho party like Vox. And I also rebel against a blatant abuse of terrorism that destroys something of the holy of holies: unity before the victims. I’ll keep doing it every time it happens. Sánchez and the PSOE are attempting to turn the post-debate around Feijóo’s “mountain of lies” rather than the President’s performance.
Sánchez insists he isn’t criticizing Vox so much over an electoral issue as because he believes it is his democratic duty to do whatever it takes to stop the far right. “I don’t know if this will produce election results or not,” the president continued, “but I think the public service I have to perform is to denounce these kinds of attitudes and pacts that are making us fall behind.” “ In these elections we are not just playing variety. “We’ll play if Spain progress further or we get into a tunnel that we don’t know exactly where they can take us,” he concluded.
NATO commitments
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The President made these comments at a press conference at the end of the NATO summit in Lithuania. In it, Sánchez announced that Spain is joining the declaration by which the G7 countries indicated their willingness to enter into long-term security commitments with Ukraine. This is a document that aims to send a message of political continuity in support of Kiev. Each signatory accepts the respective commitment in bilateral format.
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“The G-7 leaders released a joint statement announcing the imminent start of negotiations to formalize their support for this country through the adoption of medium- and long-term commitments and security arrangements. This communiqué can be signed by other allies. Like most other countries, Spain has also decided to join this declaration,” said Sánchez.
The President also gave details of the new Spanish military operation on the eastern flank, which he briefly touched on yesterday. The Spanish government has promised to send a force of about 700 soldiers to Slovakia and about 250 more to Romania. Spain is expected to lead the NATO-based battle group in Slovakia, which is currently led by the Czech Republic and also includes Germany, Slovenia and the US. The Spanish battle group is expected to be operational in the second half of 2024.
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