The fact that some gave the fascist salute and sang “Face to the Sun” during the demonstrations will have reassured Pedro Sánchez. Being the recipient of those multitudinous repudiations against the amnesty granted to Catalan leaders who had violated the Constitution, the fact that there were protesters singing the anthem of the Spanish Falange, saluting the Nazis, Italian fascists and Francoists, showed their enemies as ultras with nostalgia for a dark time.
Pedro Abascal and his lieutenants should have told the Vox bases not to be negligent and to contain their ideological impulses in the protests, so as not to give the head of government arguments to disqualify those massive demonstrations of repudiation of what he did to obtain another mandate.
By the way, although the Popular Party (PP) and Vox called for marches against Sánchez, many who are not conservative or ultra-conservative also expressed indignation against the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).
It turns out that, this time, Pedro Sánchez went too far to stay where he is: at the top of power.
The amnesty granted to the Catalan leader who violated the Constitution and fled Spain, to obtain the votes of the independence supporters for his inauguration, sets a serious precedent. Sánchez had already taken steps towards impunity for the Catalan independentists who, violating the law, carried out the 2017 sovereignty referendum.
In 2021, seeking parliamentary support for his policies, he pardoned the “prisoners of the Procés”: the former vice president of the Generalitat Oriol Junqueras and the former counselors Raúl Romeva, Joaquín Forn, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull and Dolors Bassa; the former president of the Parliament Carmen Forcadell and the former leaders of ANC and Omnium, Jordi Cuixardt and Jordi Sánchez.
None of them had fled Spain. They were all left to face the consequences of their actions, they went to the dock and ended up in prison for their responsibility in the 2017 vote. But the person most responsible, Carles Puigdemont, had escaped and now obtained amnesty without having gone through the courts or having been in prison.
This injustice implies the agreement that Sánchez reached with the leader of Junts Per Cataluña, to be able to continue occupying the main office of the Moncloa Palace. That is why he is seen by many Spaniards, beyond conservatism and the extreme right, as a “traitor to Spain.”
Even in the old guard of the PSOE, starting with Felipe González, its highest figure for the historical roles he played and for his successful governments, they accuse Sánchez of going beyond what is acceptable. Felipe González led governments for thirteen consecutive years and on several occasions with an absolute majority in parliament.
Many times he agreed with the Catalan nationalism led by Jordi Pujol with the Convergencia i Unió party (CIU), as well as with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the Canarian Coalition (CC), but the concessions he granted expanded autonomy and restored rights. cultural rights that had been violated by the Franco regime. He never made agreements that put the unity of the kingdom at risk. On the other hand, Pedro Sánchez seems to have paid for his new stay in Moncloa with the Constitution and territorial integrity.
He decided to move in that direction on the night of the election that, in July, left him in second place behind the leader of the PP.
When the counting figures stood still, Alberto Núñez Feijoo celebrated his victory at the party headquarters but, from the PSOE bunker, Pedro Sánchez watched the result with a sly smile.
Who was making a mistake? Núñez Feijoo. The leader of the center-right had received the most votes, but in parliamentary democracies it is not the one who obtains the most votes who wins, but the one who obtains the most support in the parliamentary arc. Unless a party obtains an absolute majority, the question is the range of agreements that can be reached.
Sánchez’s sly smile arose from an exact calculation that resulted in squaring a circle. The PP received the most votes, but to achieve the investiture it needed the parliamentary votes of Vox and those of regional forces such as the PNV, which would never support a government in which the far-right Falangist party is present, because that ideology argued by the dictatorship centralist and Castilianist of Francisco Franco, opposes autonomies and restricts the recognition of the national cultures that make up the cultural diversity of Spain.
The squaring of the circle that prevented Núñez Feijoo from reaching the presidency is that without Vox it was not enough and with Vox he was left without the support also essential to achieve the investiture. That is why Sánchez acted as the winner on the night of the scrutiny.
The leader of the PSOE had also found a square of the circle at the polls. But in Sanchista ethics the red lines are blurred. He knew that the votes obtained for that second position not only forced him into a new coalition government with Sumar, Yolanda Díaz’s party, but that he had to obtain much more support.
And those supports were beyond the red lines that should not be crossed to maintain political ethics.
As those of Pedro Sánchez are blurry, he transferred them to obtain support as controversial as that of JxCat, whose leader is a fugitive from Spanish justice for the violation of the Constitution that implied the sovereignty referendum that he held in 2017, while he was president of the Generalitat. , the Catalan government. To make matters worse, the agreement did not close the door to future sovereignty referendums.
Had he obtained a commitment from the separatists to desist from the independence movement, he would have had a justification.
But as it stands, the amnesty will encourage future secessionist attempts in the autonomous communities, because violating the constitution for this reason has a precedent of impunity. Pedro Sánchez has gone too far to continue where he is: the summit of power.
