At nine in the morning, Félix Bolaños entered the Senate chamber, escaping a crowd of journalists. “My mother, my mother, my mother!” exclaimed the Minister of the Presidential Office, one of the main interlocutors of the agonizing negotiation process that the government has been carrying out in the last hours to implement the three decrees that they are putting into force this Wednesday wanted. No word on what position Junts would ultimately take. Not even from Podemos. But at this point contacts with both parties continued between the corridors of the House of Lords, where the debate was taking place, as the Congress Hall was under construction. Bolaños then predicted an “intense” day. What came next far exceeded the minister's expectations.
Both Bolaños and the PSOE's organizing secretary, Santos Cerdán, spent the entire morning making phone calls and sneaking around the nooks and crannies of the Senate, unknown to many deputies. “But where is the toilet?” shouted the President of the Congress, Francina Armengol, as she wandered around confused during one of the breaks in the middle of a session that ended up lasting twelve hours, as one change followed another. Bolaños even left the toilets with his cell phone in his hand. Cerdán also spent most of the day on the phone, outside the chamber. The conversations must have been so intense that the socialist leader, sick and wearing a mask, covered his mouth with his hand to prevent his lips from being read, even though he had already covered them. Socialist sources confirmed discussions “at the highest level” by Cerdán that took place during the debate.
The organizing secretary, Santos Cerdán, in the Senate. Samuel Sanchez
The one who also left her seat was Miriam Nogueras. The Junts speaker was absent most of the time until it was her turn to speak on the anti-crisis decree, the third text to be discussed, around 1 p.m. Even then, Junts' voice was unknown. The anticipation was so great that when the MP took the podium, the loud murmurs fell silent, and even PP parliamentarians such as Elías Bendodo and Miguel Tellado put on their headphones to listen to the simultaneous translation into Catalan, an unusual gesture for the MPs. Coincidentally, in the Senate there were no subtitles on the screens to follow the interventions in official languages, as is the case in Congress. At the end of Nogueras' intervention, the MPs showed confused faces: the Junts spokeswoman remained unsure about her voice.
Yolanda Díaz also tried to ensure that her decision did not falter. The second vice president and labor minister waited for Junts' yes or abstention to try to complete negotiations with Podemos. The Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Sánchez, who is dependent on the Labor portfolio, did not leave his team behind the scenes for a minute. His department was affected by one of the biggest obstacles that Díaz tried to overcome: Podemos was reluctant to vote for his decree because it represented a “cut” in unemployment benefits for people over 52 years old. “We won’t give in!” said Labor Ministry circles.
Although Sumar did not share the “essence” of the criticism, Joaquín Sánchez summoned Podemos to a Senate chamber to try to save the decree “out of responsibility,” including the requested amendment. However, according to sources in Díaz's cabinet, Podemos MP Noemí Santana did not show up. Shortly afterwards, around 3 p.m., Podemos leader Ione Belarra confirmed to the media one of the day's bombshells: they voted against the Labor decree and rejected the text.
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Podemos argues that they told the government that they would cast their vote at 2:30 p.m. And that they received notice of the meeting minutes before that deadline, after Labor had flatly refused to consider their request for days. In any case, Belarra's party did not trust that the change would be adopted as an amendment since, according to party sources, the votes of other parties such as Junts and PNV, “not left”, would be required when processing the bill.
Exceptionally, the Senate meets to debate the validation of three government decrees with measures to cushion the crisis. Samuel Sanchez
Meanwhile, PP leader Albert Núñez Feijóo watched the cops from the sidelines, waiting for the government to suffer its first major setback. The opposition leader only entered the chamber when MPs from his party intervened and mocked the executive in the corridors of the Senate. “Valle Inclán is writing his next novel today. This is a grotesque thing,” said Feijóo, who insisted that Carles Puigdemont was demonstrating from Waterloo his ability to “humiliate” the government by keeping it on tenterhooks all day.
The debate ended with the discussion of the two changes to the entire amnesty law registered by PP and Vox. Armengol then took a 10-minute break before announcing the verdict. The Speaker's Council has decided that since the Senate does not have 350 seats, the vote on the three resolutions, the spending cap, the deficit path and the Vox initiative, should take place electronically from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Voting at the push of a button since the number of senators is fewer is. The People's Party reported earlier in the day that 30 deputies from its group had computer problems when casting their votes because the system had collapsed, according to sources from Congress, which had decided to extend the deadline to 3:30 p.m. so that “no one” would be left without a vote would choose.
At around 6:00 p.m., Armengol announced the results of the telematic vote after receiving them in a red folder from one of the congressional lawyers. And then another surprise. Junts had not voted, which actually corresponded to an abstention and made the collective decree possible, but in the anti-crisis decree there was a tie due to the error of the deputy of Sumar Pisarello. To resolve this tie, the President of Congress announced that the vote would be repeated electronically. But the PP spokesman, Miguel Tellado, stood up and demanded with all his might that they be repeated, but through the call system. That is, by vote of each MP from his seat, since his amendment to the amnesty law had also taken place. Pedro Sánchez had not attended the Senate all day. Not even at this moment.
Faced with the new surprise, Armengol hastily consulted with the senior lawyer about what to do. He checked the pages of regulations looking for a solution: The decision was to repeat the votes, effectively by phone call, but at 7:30 p.m., about an hour later. Shortly afterwards, the district president entered the corridors of the Senate. Then came the vote and the anti-crisis package was passed after a heartbreaking day. At around 8:45 p.m., Sánchez stood up from his seat with a broad smile to the applause of his people, while Minister Óscar Puente patted Santos Cerdán on the face. The district president emerged victorious again and saved the furniture at the last moment. However, not quite this time.
Junts spokeswoman Miriam Nogueras speaks with PNV speaker Aitor Esteban in the plenary hall. Rodrigo Jimenez (EFE)
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