The debate in Congress with the President of the Government has been a debate on bravery and cowardice.
Let’s go to the courage: the leader of the parliamentary group of United We Can, Jaume Asens, has asked Pedro Sánchez for courage to apply the legislative agenda, clean the “sewers” and deepen the Catalan dialogue table. EH Bildu’s spokeswoman, Mertxe Aizpurua, has also called for her courage to face the problems of the working classes. The Chief Executive highlighted, almost at the end of the session, that among his shortcomings is not that of “looking the other way”. He is brave. “I have been asked for courage”he said before sending this message: there will be courage.
It is his way of being, his essence; he says so himself in a book entitled ‘Resistance Manual’. People who know him, politically and personally, know that the higher the hurdle, the more determined he is to jump it. “He never flinches, especially if the outlook looks bad,” a charge of the formation told this journalist recently.
Let us now go to cowardice and what has been commented on it in the chamber of Congress, during a debate that has lasted five hours. Cuca Gamarra (PP) and Ines Arrimadas (Cs) have disapproved of the president who has handed over the management to pro-independence formations They want to destroy the state. “You will not find such a weak president,” the spokesperson for the popular party has proclaimed. For both, logically, Sánchez is a cowardly president who gives in too easily to ERC and EH Bildu. The deputy of the Canarian Coalition, Ana Oramas, for her part, has accused the socialist leader of having committed an act of “pure cowardice” with the dismissal of the former director of the CNI, Paz Esteban, just to stay in power.
“Take care of the leftist block”
Stay in power. It is something that the opposition usually attributes to the president: a voracious ambition that allows him to sacrifice whatever it takes in order to… Stay in power. Whether the portrait is true or not, something is not going well in the Government’s action. The Pegasus case has made this very clear.
Because there has not been a single group, except the PSOE, of course, that has been satisfied with the president’s explanations. Not even the PNV, which has seen this Thursday how two of its most relevant legislative proposals, the reform of the law on official secrets and that of the National Intelligence Center, have been little short of plagiarized. What the groups in Congress will debate will not be the nationalist texts, however, but two separate projects from the Executive, but on the statements that Andoni Ortúzar’s formation has already registered in the Chamber.
“Sanchismo” is in crisis because the government’s action, at least the relationship with the opposition, is affected. The crisis is one of confidence; it is not a small thing. The plenary session of Congress has been a incessant list of criticisms both from the left and from the right. Even Asens, although more timid, has slipped reproaches.
“Why have you come”, the ERC spokesman asked the president, Gabriel Rufian, who has not believed almost anything that Sánchez argued. Like the PDeCAT representative, Ferran Belor that of EH BilduMertxe Aizpurua, for which the chief executive has gone to Congress to “request an act of faith”. “We work to maintain the majority of the investiture; take care of the multinational and left-wing bloc,” he demanded. Aitor Estebanfor his part, has criticized the “condescension” with which, in his opinion, the PSOE acts when on the table are far-reaching reforms and deepening of rights.
The relationship of Socialist Party with United We Can, ERC, PNV and EH Bildu he’s not at his best. The flirtations that the Sánchez leadership has made with the PP and with Cs in some matters prove it. The audiovisual law, which was entrenched two weeks ago, is hanging by a thread due to a transactional amendment registered at the last moment by Héctor Gómez’s group. The future regulation of public pension plans is shifting to the right to the annoyance of the left-wing pro-independence formations, which envelops the process in intrigue.
‘Sanchismo’ tired; Sanchez emboldened
Complex times in Congress, a consequence of an instability that will advance throughout the remaining year and a half of the legislature. The PP, Vox and Cs believe that this will not last long. Gamarra has predicted the change of power “sooner than later” and Arrimadas has reported that “the happiest day” of this Sánchez mandate will be when he calls the elections. Clearly the right smells that “weakness” of the president because the interventions of his spokesmen have raised the decibels.
But as long as Sánchez does not believe it, that change will not come. According to expressions that he has uttered this Thursday, the president is confident and sure of his management, and consequently, of his electoral options, when he has to put them on the line. “When the elections come, the citizens will put them in their proper place, in the opposition,” he told the PP and Vox. “We will continue to pass laws until the end of the legislature“, He has sentenced while closing the notebook and leaving the speakers’ gallery, at which time the longest item on the agenda was ending.
The misgivings expressed by the majority of the opposition have discovered signs of exhaustion in a project that Sánchez has conceived for at least two legislatures. This does not mean that the laws begin to fall. It is very likely that, as the president himself has said, they will continue to be approved. How they get ahead is another story. If the norm of “only yes is yes” curdles on the left, it’s okay; if the audiovisual saves the right, that’s fine too.
This contrast means that Sánchez continues to believe in himself. This Thursday’s session, dedicated to Pegasus, will probably lead to a reinvention, one more. In part, he is already rehearsing it. When he has dedicated the first 20 minutes of the debate to the corruption of the PP and the audios of José Manuel Villarejo, he was setting a course. When he contrasted “the tension” of the right with his commitment to harmony, he was setting a course. As you have recalled, the motion of censure served to establish regeneration. The mission is not over. The SMI, the IMV, the labor reform, the updating of pensions, the FP law are just the beginning, according to his account.
Mr. Sánchez, as one of his namesakes, Pedro Navaja, used to say, life gives you surprises. And you were born for a hammer because nails fall from the sky. pic.twitter.com/qTsqagrKzf
– Ana Oramas (@anioramas) May 26, 2022
Ana Oramas recalled a passage from “Pedro Navajas”, a song by Rubén Blades, this Thursday: “With the tumbao of the handsome men walking”, she intoned for laughter from the right bench of the hemicycle.
But look at this beginning of this topic of the Leon Benavente band. It’s called “Courage, brave”, and it starts like this: “You, who know how to climb the mountains/Who walk the paths patiently/Who know all of Spain/And live under the influence/You, who know what the eighties were like/You You deserve everything that happens to you/You’re from the resistance/The knife between your teeth/Courage/Courage, brave”.
Legislation remains, it seems. That it goes well for Sánchez, we will see,