It’s been a long time since the Madrid City Council debated the amnesty law: six days. José Luis Martínez-Almeida will open the doors of the Cibeles Palace again this Monday to once again debate a single point of the day. The mayor of Madrid has called an extraordinary plenary session – this time at the request of PSOE and Más Madrid (for this 22 councilors are needed, there are 23 in total) – to discuss the amnesty for those accused of the Ferraz protests – which are already taking place have been accumulating for 30 days – and also against the result of the parliamentary elections on July 23rd. So More Madrid and the PSOE return the ball to the People’s Court six days after the debate on the same issue in the monthly plenary session of each month and 17 days after the PP called another extraordinary session on… the same issue. It is the third plenary session in the capital’s city council on the subject of amnesty in less than a month.
The debate takes place a day after another protest by the PP – the sixth that the Popular Party has organized in three months against the amnesty, although this time less numerous than the previous ones – and just a few hours after Isabel Díaz Ayuso this Monday will preside over the traditional celebration of Constitution Day at Puerta del Sol, an event that will be marked primarily by protocol and the absence of government ministers. Last Wednesday, Ayuso declined the invitation to the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, since he had not been invited by Moncloa to the inauguration of the AVE in Oviedo. However, the government delegate Francisco Martín Aguirre will be present. This new chapter in the conflict between the two governments begins a few days after Ayuso admitted to calling Pedro Sánchez a “son of a bitch” during the investiture session in the guest gallery of the House of Representatives.
Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida speaks during the Madrid City Council plenary session at Cibeles Palace on October 30, 2023 in Madrid. Carlos Luján (Europa Press)
In this political climate, 8,000 Madrid residents gathered this Sunday, according to the government delegation, and 15,000 residents of the city of Madrid, according to the party. It took place in the central Debod Temple, a few meters from the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street in Madrid, and a day after the meeting in Switzerland between the negotiators of the Socialists and those of the Junts per Catalunya with the Salvadoran diplomat Francisco Galindo Vélez as coordinator of the “international mechanism” of mediation agreed by both parties. “We don’t need intermediaries, intermediaries or hiding places in Geneva,” Almeida said during his speech at the protest. “They oppose the unity of Spain, that is the key to their hatred of Madrid,” Ayuso said. “What a humiliation it is to have to travel through Switzerland and other places. They call him an auditor on par with the FARC [Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia] They let us. Democracies do not die suddenly, they disappear little by little.” The Madrid PP leads practically all of the protests in Spain against the amnesty. So much so that it is very difficult to find a public statement from a city councilor or MP who has not criticized it on their social networks. The one who went the furthest was the vice mayor of the capital, Inmaculada Sanz, who said on November 16 in the press room of the Cibeles Palace and after a meeting of the city government that the amnesty law was more serious than the 1981 coup:
“We are facing the most serious event in Spanish democracy in 45 years.”
In this context, Más Madrid and PSOE will call on the PP this Monday to criticize Ferraz’s “acts of violence” and to show their “absolute respect” for the election results of July 23rd. Más Madrid spokesperson Rita Maestre will defend the initiative after it was criticized by Almeida in the ordinary plenary session last week. Maestre was absent while on an official trip to the Guadalajara Book Fair (Mexico).
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PSOE municipal spokesman and former Sánchez minister Reyes Maroto will again confront Almeida, who criticized her two plenary sessions ago for not distorting Ayuso’s words to Sánchez when she called him a “son of a bitch” in Congress. The PP then said that Ayuso said: “I like fruit.” Maroto asked Almeida to condemn these words with some sarcasm. “Do you like fruit, Mayor?” he asked. And the mayor didn’t hesitate for a second to answer from his lectern:
-I like fruits.
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