Because Spain is unaccustomed to political anger and tension, one of the country's main problems, polarization, is more than just the word of the year, according to CIS. The Urgent Spanish Foundation (FundéuRAE) chose this term, even before the ubiquitous and controversial “amnesty” for the defendants in the trial. This explosive atmosphere, which aggravates the terrible relationship between the country's two main leaders, Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, spread to the 2023 election campaigns and, with the support of the PP and Vox, in the protests against the PSOE headquarters Street because of the future amnesty law. The right and the far right carry this discomfort against the so-called sanchismo as the axis of their strategy for the three elections in the first half of 2024 (elections in Galicia, Basque Country and Europe). The government, particularly its socialist sector, trusts that time and the depth of new social measures will work in its favor and that Spain outside the Madrid M-30 will be more responsive to a diverse majority of the country with nationalist and pro-independence forces leaning against them reject and fear the alternative of a Feijóo executive, dependent on the ultra-support of Santiago Abascal, but they do not give up their demands.
On January 12, 2023, the criminal code reform came into force, abolishing the crime of sedition and reducing the costs of embezzlement, with the intention of favoring Catalan independence leaders convicted or indicted in the separatist trial. This decision, a continuation of their philosophy of pardons granted to the leaders of the trial to deepen an atmosphere of harmony in Catalonia, was also very controversial and had little practical impact on the accused independence leaders and now, just a year later, it has already been mentioned. It's not even mentioned.
The possibility of an amnesty was only included in the Catalan Independents' protest speech at the time and it took a few months for it to arrive. Sánchez, like many of his ministers, denied this until the July 23 general elections. Everyone considered it an unconstitutional measure, but accepted it after ascertaining that the preservation of the government depended on the seven decisive votes of the Junts, the party of the escaped Carles Puigdemont.
Feijóo and Ayuso hold a fruit basket on December 18th. SERGIO PEREZ (EFE)
Instability and precarity. Never since the 1977 general election has a government had such tight numbers. Adolfo Suárez's UCD won in 1977 and 1979 with 165 and 168 seats, respectively. José María Aznar had 156 in his first term (1996). Pedro Sánchez started with the 152 seats of the PSOE and Sumar, which gave him 24 votes less than an absolute majority compared to a stable opposition bloc with 171 votes (PP, Vox and UPN) let. But now the initial split between Podemos and Sumar lowers the bar for the progressive coalition government even further (147). President Sánchez does not have a free voice in this scenario and is obliged “by conviction and necessity” to negotiate everything with Sumar, Junts, ERC, EH Bildu, PNV, BNG, the Canary Islands Coalition and now with Podemos.
The first serious threat he will face will come precisely from one of these allies. It's a good example of the undermined panorama that lurks. Junts intends to overturn the legislature's first decree, passed on December 19, arguing that it “jeopardizes the amnesty.” The regulation, which fundamentally aims to promote the digitalization of the judiciary, provides, among other things, for the suspension of legal proceedings before the Court of Justice of the EU, but the confiscation of 10 billion in funds also depends on its approval. Europeans. The government has one month after its publication in the BOE for Congress to validate it. The PSOE must overcome this first major order: if Junts votes no and PP and Vox do the same, the order would be automatically repealed and the game would be lost. All challenges have their connection.
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Elections and campaigns: 28-M and 23-J. The linked local elections of May 28th and the parliamentary elections of July 23rd have a lot to do with the climate of polarization from which Spanish political life is suffering. The results of 23-J disappointed the expectations raised in Feijóo and his team, which were already observed in La Moncloa. Five months later, the PP does not seem to have yet digested this failure. Sánchez and his party made a U-turn in the month and a half between March 28 and June 23. His efforts to maintain government despite being the second most elected force contributed to all sorts of dialectical cannon shots being directed against the leader of the PSOE.
The reaction to the coalition governments agreed upon by the right of the PP and the right-wing extremists of Vox in five autonomous municipalities and 140 city councils came in the aftermath of the 23-J election campaign, after the debacle of the left in the local elections Majority of PSOE and Unidas-Podemos leaders swept away. Even then, the conservative electorate was incited with an alleged “referendum against Sanchism” and a rallying cry “Let Txapote vote for you,” promoted by Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso and which angered several victims' associations so much that they did not vote for them thought possible You had to remember that ETA disappeared 12 years ago. Peripheral Spain was the seventh cavalry for Sánchez's comeback and came to his aid in the July parliamentary elections: PP and Vox won only 8 of the 48 seats in Catalonia and 2 of the 18 deputies in Euskadi.
Demonstration in front of Ferraz on November 9th. Samuel Sanchez
Feijóo's inability to find an ally in the face of the spirit of Vox's presence in his shadow has allowed Sánchez to continue to govern, although in a more difficult scenario: he will do so amid enormous fragmentation, with a government more in distress than all his partners and for almost everything, with support as unpredictable as that of Junts, led by Puigdemont from Brussels, and against a further threat to his left: since the investiture he has even secured the votes of five Podemos deputies, supporters, lost by Pablo Iglesias after his split from Sumar.
Vandalism and vox. The PP's territorial counterbalance to La Moncloa's clout is overwhelming, with an autonomous Spain dominated by the party based in Génova 13, which governs in 12 municipalities, 30 provincial capitals and 40% of city councils across the country, in addition to the absolute Majority in the Senate to torpedo and delay any plan. The PP has chosen a strategy of confrontation and has allowed itself to be seduced by Vox to call for demonstrations against the amnesty in streets and squares across Spain in the last third of the year. Many of the participants later gathered in Madrid for rallies promoted by Vox and small groups of the far right, Francoists and neo-Nazis, in front of the PSOE national headquarters on Ferraz Street. There are around 200 townhouses destroyed, while the accusations against socialist officials do not subside in a polarization whose most recent episode was the resignation of two socialist councilors in the Pamplona City Council, who were accused of not voting, according to PSN. the motion of no confidence against the mayor of UPN.
“There is asymmetric polarization; Here there are only people who insult and people who are insulted. Parties that are under siege and political leaders that are calling for the siege of these political forces,” Sánchez emphasized this week in his annual report after meeting Feijóo in Congress a few days earlier. The opposition leader refused to go to La Moncloa, not recognizing any authority and treating him as just another interlocutor and not a legitimate president.
Catalog of insults. Coinciding with this new disrespect on the part of Feijóo, the PSOE produced a video to broadcast on its social networks in which it listed some of the insults that were leveled against the President of the Government from the ranks of the population: caudillista, criminal, corrupt, coward, despot , egomaniac, adamist, weak, sectarian, irresponsible, frivolous, populist, immoral, trilero, dictator, radical, coup leader, tyrant… Feijóo, who was promoted to president of the PP almost two years ago to replace Pablo Casado No, he came not only to insult Sánchez but also to beat him. He even recently lightly suggested that the head of Spain's executive branch might be suffering from some kind of “pathological tic” because the president had spontaneously laughed during a debate. Miguel Tellado, an assault lieutenant chosen by Feijóo to be the new speaker in Congress, joked that the president should leave Spain “in a suitcase.”
Joseba Asiron, new mayor of Pamplona.Jaime Villanueva
The PSN hands over the mayoralty of Pamplona to EH-Bildu. The epilogue to this period of anger and fire was the change in the office of the mayor of the capital Navarre. Joseba Asiron (EH Bildu) replaced Cristina Ibarrola in the first pact in which the PSOE, contrary to what Sánchez had repeatedly promised, facilitated the government of an institution of the nationalist left. “Spain does not win the office of a progressive mayor, it wins the office of a reactionary mayor and loses a state party,” attacked Feijóo, who described Sánchez’s government as the “weakest, with the fewest words and with the least ethical credibility in democratic history “ referred to. Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso had already set the pace for him the day before: “There is no greater outrage than that Sánchez is applauded by terrorists from outside and from within, from those who govern.” The author of the sentence “I likes fruit”, to which she resorted sarcastically after calling Sánchez a “son of a bitch” from the tribune of the congressional authorities in the investiture debate, is the PP leader who is the most advanced in his disqualifications against the president: “He has decided “To destroy democracy, we are on the way to dictatorship.” Feijóo did not want to stop these outbursts and brought Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo back to his battering rams in parliament.
Different reactions to political violence. There are further differences in the parties' appearances in moments of particular virulence. The PSOE demanded and obtained the resignation of Daniel Viondi from his status as a city councilor in Madrid and from his organic positions after that councilor slapped the mayor of Madrid, the popular José Luis Martínez-Almeida, three times in the face. This behavior is in contrast to what Vox did to its city councilor and national MP Javier Ortega Smith, after confronting a Más Madrid city councilor and throwing a bottle of water at him. Vox continues to defend Ortega, who is currently being disapproved of by the company and has been questioned by Almeida and Feijóo. Not because of Abascal, who attended the inauguration of Javier Milei in Argentina a few weeks ago and told the Clarín newspaper: “Pedro Sánchez is not as sharp and clever as people think.” An unscrupulous politician has a competitive advantage over honest politicians. I have some principles. I can't sell them. Sanchez has none. There will come a certain moment when people will want to hang him by his feet.” This is another example of the decibels of politics reaching beyond the political and media bubble of Congress and the Senate. Its impact was repeated in areas such as the Valencian Community, where Vice President Vicente Barrera (Vox) confronted a Socialist MP in a plenary session and punched him in the chest.
Elections, campaigns and few agreements. The registration in Congress of a text agreed by the PP and the PSOE to reform Article 49 of the Constitution and replace the term “disabled” with “people with disabilities” is a drop of peace in the sea of muddy tensions that prevail between the two major parties continued disagreements. The renewal of the General Council of Justice (CGPJ), blocked by the PP for more than five years, will test the extent of the real desire for unity between these two political formations, while Spain faces the upcoming elections in Galicia continues to remain in a perpetual electoral state February 18 and the Basque elections scheduled for March or April. The European elections will conclude on June 9th with a single constituency for the entire country.
The Junts deputies, on November 15th in the Congress of Deputies.Claudio Alvarez
Delaying the amnesty until the campaigns. Feijóo expects to seek revenge with the polls in the next election, using as a recurring test the “betrayal” of a president who sold out Spain to the independents by granting amnesty to its leaders. The popular leader warned and delivered: He will use all the political, institutional, legal and social instruments at his disposal on the streets, in parliaments and even in Europe so that the tension neither subsides nor is forgotten. The first element of the fight will be his absolute majority in the Senate to stop the amnesty law. Justice could creep into this fight on various fronts and at any time.
The processing of the controversial amnesty law proposal, registered by the PSOE and coordinated with Junts and ERC, was finally approved at the beginning of December, it is now in the amendment phase and will take its first steps between January, February and March. They reach the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority and will hold it back for at least two months. The PSOE's idea is to barely touch the registered text because it understands that it is so refined that it can overcome the filter of appeals that will come before the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Constitutional Court. In these months, the executive must present its first budget plans of this complex legislative period and set up negotiating tables with its various partners, some of whom face each other and have conflicting interests in Catalonia and the Basque Country, where they will all compete.
Motion of no confidence by Vox, on March 21st. Luis Sevillano
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