Ángel Collado
The first investiture session to elect the President of the Government has been as unsuccessful, as expected, for Alberto Núñez Feijóo as favorable to the interests of Pedro Sánchez to reissue a new left-wing Executive with the endorsement of the pro-independence parties of all signs.
Rejected in the first vote by 172 votes in favor and 178 against and awaiting the second and final vote next Friday, the president of the PP is consolidated as the next head of the opposition at the head of the main party of the House and as a reference in the defense of the constitutional framework that the socialist candidate submits to auction to ensure the support of the separatist groups.
The first parliamentary debate of the legislature served to confirm before his own people the solidity of the aspirant, although he did not gather more votes than those of the PP, the extreme right of Vox, the regionalists of the Canary Islands and the foralists of Unión del Pueblo Navarro.
The other groups rejected any approach to Feijóo and his constitutionalist and moderate political project, which clashes with his aspirations to lead a new, more radical Sanchist government open to the various secessionist or “plurinational” plans.
Indirectly, all the separatist and nationalist parties on which the formation of the next Executive depends came to ratify their intention to keep Sánchez in power, as they have done in the last five years, in exchange for economic benefits, tax privileges, or even impunity from Justice in the case of the two Catalan pro-independence parties.
These are the two demands, amnesty for those involved in the attempt of October 1, 2017 and referendum of self-determination in Catalonia, which Feijóo has not been able to raise and on which they are already negotiating with Sánchez.
Assumed the distribution of forces by blocks without the possibility of any change after three weeks of consultations and interviews even with the social agents, the debate put on record Sánchez’s decision to do whatever is necessary to remain in power, including breaking with parliamentary traditions and respect for institutional procedures.
The acting head of the Executive did not deign to fulfill his role as head of the second parliamentary group of the House, the position in which the polls left him, and delegated the exercise of the spokesmanship to a second-tier socialist deputy, Óscar Puente, so that he could go out and insult Feijóo.
Sánchez’s snub to the candidate proposed by the King and to the Congress, in turn, announces an acrimonious legislature and the questioning of the institutions of the democratic regime, which will have a second pass when the Socialist candidate will be received again by Felipe VI once the fiasco of Feijóo’s investiture is confirmed.
The socialist candidate takes his re-election for granted despite coming second and officially having only 152 seats behind him, those of the PSOE plus those of the extreme left of the Sumar party headed by its vice-president Yolanda Díaz.
The King will have to take note of the rest of Sánchez’s presumed supporters by Sánchez and Díaz themselves because the representatives of the separatist parties refuse to comply with their constitutional obligation to participate in the round of contacts with the Monarch so that he can present to Congress the candidates for the presidency of the Government.
In the bloc of the nationalist parties, only the PNV goes to see the King, although it criticizes later its decisions in the same line as Sánchez. For four weeks the Socialist had been disqualifying Feijóo’s determination to run for the presidency of the Executive despite the fact that the Monarch had asked him to do so after the polls made the PP the majority group in Congress.
Sanchez is now left at the expense of contenting Carles Puigdemont so that the 7 deputies of the fugitive from Justice who vote “no” to Feijóo give him their “yes” in exchange for an amnesty law or “penal relief” for his bosses and activists in addition to a plan and dates for a referendum of self-determination.
