Pedro Sánchez already raised his voice in the Spanish dawn of Santo Domingo, at the close of the Ibero-American summit. The President was outraged by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who, in an act with the President of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, before an audience of Hispanic citizens living in Spain, had accused the President of “homage to the autocrats. ” The government was quick to interpret that the PP criticized the presence of the President at this fundamental meeting of Spanish diplomacy, which the legislators dispute. Sanchez was very direct. “It’s a sad statement. These summits have been held for more than three decades. And the Head of State takes part in them. There is no better representation than this. Feijóo’s bankruptcy and bad faith is quite surprising. He has been leading the PP for more than a year. It is surprising that he has not been able to fill these knowledge gaps by he formed teams that update him on the history of the summits,” testified the President of Santo Domingo.
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares had already launched a clear concerted government strategy to deal with what they believe to be a new blunder by the opposition leader. “I ask Mr. Feijóo to correct his words. They are particularly unhappy,” protested Albares, before asking the PP leader to clarify “specifically which countries he was referring to”. Hours later, Esteban González Pons, in charge of the people’s international affairs, asserted that Feijóo was not alluding to the summit, but only meant to criticize “the government’s condescension towards various oppressive regimes”. But he hasn’t clarified which ones either. In the same act of Feijóo in Madrid, before coming to this clarification, González Pons had a clear reference to the summit and the usual family photo: “Tomorrow there will be two photos in the press: you will see Pedro Sánchez with a couple of dictators; You will see Almeida, Ayuso and Feijó with the lovers, children and heirs of freedom,” he had said.
The subsequent statement by González Pons does not convince the government. Albares recalled that if the PP was referring to Venezuela, the Sánchez government allowed 90,000 Venezuelans to come to Spain, including a key opposition leader like Leopoldo López. When referring to Nicaragua, Albares continued, “the government has offered Spanish citizenship to all Nicaraguans who have been shamefully stripped of their citizenship”. “What does Feijóo suggest? That Spain left its chair empty? That President Sánchez leaves the king alone? What is prevented from coming to any of the 22 [países] members? For more than 30 years, Spain has been at the helm with governments of different omens and no one has ever criticized the aid,” exclaimed the minister.
Executive sources, outraged by Feijóo’s intervention, quickly recalled that the Ibero-American Summit is a Spanish initiative in which all the presidents have always taken part, from Felipe González to José María Aznar – his walks with Fidel Castro are well remembered – and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero or Mariano Rajoy. These sources called Feijóo “ignorant” and “irresponsible” and stressed that the summit, as always, would also be attended by Felipe VI or the EU’s highest foreign representative, Josep Borrell. Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel is attending the meeting in Santo Domingo and Nicolás Maduro is absent for the time being. Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega was also absent.
Ayuso associates the government with “narco-dictators”.
Feijóo and Díaz Ayuso rolled up their sleeves in a rally filled with song, applause and flags to try to wear down the government and mobilize Latino votes in regional and local elections on May 28. “I take great pride in not showing honor to rulers’ apprentices of autocrats and truly autocratic rulers who use their people to improve themselves and prosper,” said Núñez Feijóo, without specifically quoting Sánchez, who spoke this Saturday in Santo Domingo is and he will be traveling to China next week to meet with President Xi Jinping. “For that reason, I’m very proud to be with the Hispanic American people and I don’t miss meeting with some of the leaders of the Hispanic American nations,” he said.
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Even more outspoken was Díaz Ayuso, who accused the PSOE of trying to buy votes in America by granting nationalizations in return and attacked the coalition government formed by the PSOE and Podemos by suggesting they had ties to “drug dictators.” ” have. “This government of liberticides wants to multiply nationalizations carried out quickly and badly in an election year, desperately and shamelessly trying to take advantage of the Hispanic world,” accused the president of the Autonomous Community of Madrid in front of several hundred people. “Sanchista delegates travel to their respective countries to buy wills and exchange votes for nationalizations,” he added to a mostly Latin American audience. And he concluded: “The next 28-M, Spain, will be filled with the desire for change, illusion and future, and together we will leave behind these disastrous years of alliances with the notorious drug dictatorships in Latin America.”
These words of the popular leaders amazed the Spanish delegation sent to the Ibero-American summit. In addition to describing Feijóo as “ignorant” and “irresponsible”, government sources have wondered if the PP leader believes the PM should not attend the summit, or if Feijóo himself would not go if one day he was at The Moncloa arrives Faced with the uproar caused, hours later the popular Esteban González Pons assured that “It is simply wrong that Feijóo criticizes the attendance [de Sánchez] to the Ibero-American Summit” and specified that the leader of the PP only wanted to criticize “the government’s condescension towards various oppressive regimes”.
Feijóo had also criticized at the Madrid event that the next EU-CELAC (Iberoamerican and Caribbean countries) summit will be held in Brussels and not in Spain during the Spanish semester of the European Council Presidency, which Sánchez has described as a success. “It’s the other way around, it’s a success,” reply La Moncloa sources. “It will be organized in Brussels, just like the summit with the African Union. They should be informed in the PP before criticizing. It’s all out of great ignorance.”
The President of the PP Alberto Núñez Feijóo (d), the President of Madrid Isabel Díaz Ayuso (c) and the Mayor of Madrid José Luis Martínez-Almeida (i) Photo: JUAN CARLOS HIDALGO (EFE) | Video: EFE
The act had started shortly before, when Yadira Maestre, evangelical pastor of the parish of Cristo Viene (Usera), blessed the conclave. In a thunderous voice, Maestre pleaded for God’s protection to extend it to Mayor Martínez Almeida, Ayuso and Feijóo. But the atmosphere was not one of fervor but of party. In a landscape of Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Romania, Spain and PP flags, Henry Méndez’s music entertained the wait while the audience arrived full of colour. Over here a tracksuit from Venezuela; over there the ruffles of a long Dominican skirt; there blue baseball caps with white writing “Nicaragua” and further away black T-shirts with shiny gold writing: “Christian Democrats”.
“Help! Help!” was heard as the leaders of the PP took the stage. “President! President!”, Feijóo was also encouraged. Then, after a brief intervention by the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, Ayuso and Feijóo accused against the government’s foreign policy.
“We can reverse the rotating presidency of the European Union [que asumirá España en el segundo semestre del año] sign big deals with Mercosur to create a market of more than 700 million people,” said Núñez Feijóo. “We should use the presidency to finalize the deals with Chile and Mexico that are being pushed by the European Union,” he continued. “In times of scarcity, there is a need to open our borders, share your resources with ours, and create a community of free countries with democracy and prosperity.”
After the speeches, the party continued. To the rhythm of bachata, cumbia and merengue, the spectators, now without politicians, danced and ate in front of a banner with the inscription “Europe is Hispanic” as a background. Although in reality the context was different: since Bolivians, Colombians, Chileans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians and Paraguayans can vote in local elections without citizenship, the PP is looking for Latino votes for the May 28 elections.
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