The leadership has no intention of making a counteroffensive in the territories to the PP’s barrage and puts all the focus on the PP “circus”: “Aznar mobilizes us”
There is nothing better for cover up a crisis than another. And if it affects another party, it’s all good. The PSOE had managed, after 23J, to have the focus of Spanish politics shine only on the PP and the failure of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in winning the Moncloa. It wasn’t difficult. The frustration of being just four deputies away from an absolute majority with Vox remains latent throughout the organization. Added to this historic setback were a whole series of Feijóo’s comings and goings – with the extreme right, with Junts, with the investiture – that allowed the PSOE to stay aside and observe.
The change of opinion of the socialist leadership on the amnesty – from unconstitutional to constitutional – and the demands of Carles Puigdemont to negotiate his support for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez – the president needs the votes of Junts – put an end to that idyllic moment. The internal doubts moved from the PP to the PSOE, which had to face a flood of criticism regarding the possibility of amnesty for crimes linked to the events of the ‘procés’. Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra or others with a little more connection to the party currently such as Ramon Jauregui and Joaquín Almunia. With them the debate was triggered and the internal response increased. And although none of the voices are representative at an organic level, except Emiliano García-Page and Javier Lambánboth Ferraz and Moncloa have had to make a greater effort to explain themselves.
Now, although the forecast is that these reproaches will continue, the emergence of José María Aznar to mark Feijóo the line of opposition, it allows the PSOE to once again focus the light on the PP. Ferraz aspires to stay on the sides again. He neither has much interest in reacting to the motions against the amnesty in communities and city councils nor to the event announced on September 24 in Madrid, in the Plaza de España. “The PP circus is the PP circus”, they assure the address. “We are not going to participate in the blows of a defeated leader (Feijóo) and with no other ideas than Aznar’s.”
This assumes that there will be no counteroffensive, that the popular ones will manage their plan without an active response. Beyond poking the finger in the eye of the Galician leader for his alleged dependence on Isabel Díaz Ayuso and now also on the former president, and attacking Aznar, one of the figures that causes the most rejection in the progressive and nationalist sphere, the socialists only They try to sit and wait. The arguments sent to the federations about the amnesty do not deviate from the script that “there is nothing” and that the person who is in the process of gathering votes for his investiture is the popular leader.
“Feijóo doesn’t want to work”
Ferraz insists on this: “We are dealing with serious things, given that Feijóo does not want to work on his investiture.” While the noise in the PP grows, the less we hear new criticisms of the amnesty like those repeated this Wednesday by García-Page. The president of Castilla-La Mancha recalled that the PSOE appeared in the elections making it clear that the amnesty for those involved in the ‘procés’ did not fit into the Constitution and he asked his party to clarify it. Because, he stressed, it would be “enormously serious” that what did not fit in the Constitution “fits from one day to the next”.
The noise around Aznar allowed the PSOE to concentrate solely on that. On Tuesday, the Government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, assured that the former president’s call for a “national rebellion” against the amnesty entered into a “coup” terrain. The socialist spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, supported her this Wednesday, accusing the PP of “not having a project for Spain”, of setting up this demonstration to “attack” the PSOE and of seeking “confrontation.” “There are former presidents who do not help harmony at all”.
Aznar’s help
Aznar is always a blessing for socialists. He helps spread his idea that Feijóo is not an autonomous leader, that he replicates the same behavior as Pablo Casado, and is tremendously polarizing. “Aznar always mobilizes us”they point out in the socialist bloc of the Government with respect to their own electorate.
An invaluable help in a moment of anxiety in the PSOE. The management assumes that the criticism within the party will continue, although neither Ferraz nor Moncloa have yet said anything about the terms of a possible amnesty. On the 20th González presents Guerra’s memoir ‘The Rose and the Thorns’ in Madrid and both are in demand these days by the media. This Thursday, in addition, the former president coincides at an event in Seville with the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno.
Ferraz takes refuge in the electoral result -Sánchez has obtained a million more votes than in 2019- to avoid some reproaches, which he believes are not shared by his bases. Our voter, they emphasize, “understands perfectly that Spain is plural and not uniform and that our framework is the Constitution.” But just in case he warns critics inside and outside: We must be very “prudent” when talking about amnesty.